Space News & Blog Articles

File: A Falcon 9 rocket stands ready to launch a Starlink mission. Image: SpaceX

SpaceX is looking to notch its fourth launch in January with another Starlink flight. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 23 Starlink satellites is targeting liftoff at 7:52 p.m. EST (0052 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The company was launching at a rate of about every four days or so from the Cape towards the end of 2023. However, the launch cadence on the East Coast has slowed somewhat with one of the two Florida-based droneships, ‘Just Read the Instructions,’ still on the sidelines after it was damaged during a booster recovery in late December.

Spaceflight Now will have live launch coverage starting an hour before liftoff.

The first stage booster supporting Saturday evening’s launch, tail number B1073, will be making its 12 flight on the Starlink 6-37 mission. Its pedigree includes launching ispace’s HAKUTO-R Mission 1 lander, SpaceX’s 27th Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-27) mission and seven Starlink missions.

About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, B1073 will land on the droneship, ‘A Shortfall of Gravitas.’ This will be the 57th landing on ASOG and the 263rd SpaceX booster landing to date. SpaceX will also endeavor to recover the payload fairings.

File photo a a Falcon 9 prior to a Starlink satellite delivery mission. Image: SpaceX.

SpaceX pushed back to Saturday the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from California due to unfavorable weather for booster recovery in the Pacific Ocean. The launch, carrying 22 Starlink satellites, will add to the more than 5,300 satellites already in orbit.

The rocket is now set to liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on Saturday, Jan. 13, at 12:59 a.m. PST (3:59 a.m. EST, 0859 UTC). The launch has already been delayed multiple times, as delay from Thursday was also due to poor weather, according to SpaceX.

The first stage booster supporting this mission, tail number B1061, is set to launch for the 18th time. It previously launched two astronaut flights, two Transporter ride-share missions and seven Starlink flights among seven other missions.

Following liftoff, it will land on the droneship ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ about 8.5 minutes later.

While four launches in two weeks would be an incredible pace for any other launch company, SpaceX’s launch cadence has slowed down a bit at the start of the year since one of its East Coast droneships is still sidelined.

(Left to right) Ax-3 Mission Specialist Marcus Wandt, Pilot Walter Villadei, Commander Michael López-Alegría, Mission Specialist Alper Gezeravcı. Image: Axiom Space

For the third time, Axiom Space is preparing a charter mission to the International Space Station. The Ax-3 mission carries the distinction of featuring an all-European crew, with Commander Michael López-Alegría being a dual citizen of both the United States and Spain.

Following the Flight Readiness Review on Wednesday, the crew spoke about their upcoming mission amid their ongoing quarantine in Florida, which has been in place for a little over a week. They are set to launch to the ISS, on Wednesday, Jan. 17, at 5:11 p.m. EST (2211 UTC).

“I’m very proud to being leading this mission to the International Space Station. It’s important not just for the scientific research and technology demonstrations and outreach events we will do, but it’s a very important step towards Axiom Space having a commercial space station in orbit before the decade is out,” said López-Alegría.

The commander of the Ax-3 mission is returning to the station for the second time as both a mission commander and a private astronaut. He previously flew as a crew member on three Space Shuttle missions and Expedition 14 via Soyuz TMA-9.

The pilot of the mission, Walter Villadei, a colonel in the Italian Air Force and head of the ItAF’s U.S. office overseeing commercial spaceflight will be making his second flight onboard a U.S. spacecraft. He previously flew onboard the suborbital Virgin Galactic flight dubbed Unity 23.

The Artemis 2 crew, standing in from of their Artemis spacecraft, discusses their planned around-the-moon flight with reporters at the Kennedy Space Center. Left to right: commander Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now.

A quartet of astronauts will have to wait until next year before their voyage around the Moon. In a robust update on Tuesday afternoon, NASA leadership announced that the next two missions in the Artemis program, and the first featuring astronauts, will each shift back by nearly a year.

The Artemis 2 mission, which was due to liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center this November, will instead launch no earlier than September 2025. The Artemis 3 mission, which will still feature the first crewed Moon landing since 1972, is now pushed to September 2026 at the earliest.

“As we remind everybody at every turn, safety is our top priority,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “And though challenges are clearly ahead, our teams are making incredible progress.”

The delay of the Artemis 3 mission was forecast in November in a report to Congress from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). That report suggested that landing back on the Moon was likely to actually happen in early 2027 “if development took as long as the average for NASA major projects.”

In order to safely carry out our upcoming #Artemis missions to the Moon with astronauts, we are now targeting September 2025 for Artemis II and September 2026 for Artemis III.

Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander in the clean room at Astrotech in Titusville, Florida. The spacecraft was the main payload onboard the first launch of ULA’s Vulcan rocket. Image: ULA

In situation seemly pulled from a science fiction movie, a robotic mission to the Moon swung from the brink of failure to having renewed hope before the pendulum swung back again with a successful lunar landing for Astrobotic’s Peregrine spacecraft now unlikely.

The first commercially-built lunar lander from the U.S. ran into trouble just hours after launching on board United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) inaugural Vulcan rocket.

Soon after Astrobotic’s Peregrine spacecraft was delivered to a trans-lunar injection orbit on Monday morning, the company said an “anomaly” occurred that prevented it from orienting the spacecraft’s solar panels towards the Sun to begin drawing the necessary power to operate.

Astrobotic confirmed it was able to establish connection with the lander a few minutes after it started flying solo via NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN). But the loss of control meant the craft’s batteries were being drained.

Excellent news!@astrobotic’s confirms Acquisition of Signal of the #Peregrine lunar lander through @CanberraDSN’s antennas #DSS35 and #DSS36
Great job team! pic.twitter.com/vgyrbruQYR

The inaugural Vulcan rocket leaps off the pad at Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The booster was powered by the first pair of BE-4 engines to fly in space. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now

With the company’s future riding on it, United Launch Alliance’s first Vulcan rocket successfully put a commercial robotic lander on course for the Moon after lifting off from Cape Canaveral’s pad 41 at 2:18 a.m. EST (0718 UTC).

This mission was the first certification flight of Vulcan, an important proving ground for the first launch vehicle developed by ULA since it was established in 2006. The milestone comes roughly a decade after the rocket was first announced.

“Yeehaw! I’m so thrilled! I can’t tell you how much,” said ULA President and CEO Tory Bruno after the rocket’s upper stage sent the Astrobotic Peregrine lunar lander on its way.

This first certification mission for Vulcan (Cert-1) was also an historic step in returning the U.S. back to the Moon’s surface for the first time since 1972. The primary payload onboard the rocket was a privately-funded robotic lunar lander, which was built by Pittsburgh-based company, Astrobotic.

A few minutes after the Peregrine lander separated from the Centaur 5 upper stage, flight teams with Astrobotic confirmed that they were getting telemetry data from the lander.

Watch live coverage as the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan Centaur rocket will launches on its inaugural flight with the Peregrine commercial robotic lunar lander for Astrobotic. Peregrine will carry multiple experiments, scientific instruments, and tech demo payloads for NASA and other customers.

Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is scheduled for 2:18 a.m. EST (0718 UTC) at the opening of a 45-minute launch window.

The Falcon 9 rocket goes upright at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Photo: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now.

The next batch of 23 Starlink satellites for SpaceX’s space-based internet service are scheduled to ride a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit Sunday from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Liftoff is now targeted for 5:35 p.m. EST (2235 UTC).

SpaceX had earlier announced a four-hour launch window that opened at 4 p.m. EST (2100 UTC), but it needs to clear the way for the inaugural launch of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket from neighboring pad 41. The rocket was only raised upright on the launch pad at around 1 p.m. EST leaving crews racing to meet the new target launch time of 5:35 p.m. EST.

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage of the mission starting one hour before liftoff. You can watch live views of the Falcon 9 in our Launch Pad Live stream.

The first stage booster supporting this flight, tail number B1067, will be making its 16th flight, becoming just the fourth booster to reach that milestone. There are only three other boosters with a longer flight history that are still in use after B1058 was unintentionally destroyed during the recovery process:

B1060, B1061 and B1067 all have the distinction of launching two Crew Dragon spacecraft each during their lifetimes. B1080 is set to join that club later this month when it launches on its fifth flight with the Axiom Mission 3 (Ax-3) astronauts aboard Crew Dragon Freedom.

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The United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket is transported from the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) to Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral, Florida, in preparation for the certification mission (Cert-1). The mission will launch the Astrobotic Peregrine commercial lunar lander, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, into a highly elliptical orbit more than 220,000 miles (360,000 km) above Earth to intercept the Moon and carry a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight Payload into deep space. Image: ULA

Nearly a decade of planning, designing, assembly and testing for United Launch Alliance (ULA) is about to culminate in the first launch of its Vulcan rocket. The maiden flight of the launch vehicle is set for Monday, Jan. 8, at 2:18 am EST (0718 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The fully assembled rocket emerged from the Vertical Integration Facility around 10:40 a.m. EST on Friday to travel the roughly 500-meter journey to the launch pad. After the 61.6-meter-tall (202 feet) rocket completed its trek, ULA teams spent the rest of the day performing leak checks on the umbilicals that will fuel the rocket and checking out the guidance and flight termination systems.

That’s how we roll. #ToryTimelapse #VulcanRocket pic.twitter.com/3bz9LgMZ0r

— Tory Bruno (@torybruno) January 5, 2024

Onboard, the primary payload, Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander, is awaiting its ride to the Moon. It was hoisted atop the rocket inside the 15.5-meter-long (51 feet) payload fairing, manufactured by Beyond Gravity, on Dec. 20. Peregrine will be launched into a trans-lunar injection orbit to begin its journey to the Moon before the Centaur 5 upper stage continues on with Celestis Memorial Spaceflight’s “Enterprise Flight” to a heliocentric orbit around the Sun.

The payload for the Certification-1 (Cert-1) flight test on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket is encapsulated inside its payload fairing in preparation for launch. The mission will launch the first Astrobotic Peregrine commercial lunar lander, as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, into a highly elliptical orbit more than 220,000 miles (360,000 km) above Earth to intercept the Moon and carry a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight Payload into deep space. Image: ULA

A gold-plated tracker, an imager searching for surface water and an radiation detector are among the suite of five instruments flying on board one of NASA’s first missions to the Moon’s surface since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

Researchers and officials with the agency’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services Program (CLPS) outlined the NASA-sponsored payloads on board Astrobotic’s lunar lander. It’s set to launch onboard the maiden flight of United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Vulcan rocket.

“This whole task is not easy. Landing on the Moon is extremely difficult,” said Chris Culbert, the CLPS program manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. “We recognize that success cannot be assured. The surface of the Moon hold many robotic spacecraft that were not able to land softly and complete there missions.”

Among the 20 total payloads manifested on the Peregrine Mission 1 lander are the following:

“The particular suite of payloads on Peregrine 1 have some interesting synergies that will make important contributions to lunar science and exploration,” said Paul Niles, the CLPS project scientist at NASA. “Three of our instruments will collect data on lunar volatiles using different techniques. Two instruments will provide perspectives on the radiation environment at the lunar surface, helping us better prepare us to send crewed missions back to the Moon.”

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The orbital launch year is about to kick off in Florida in the same way it ended 2023: with the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. On board the workhorse launch vehicle is a communications satellite for Sweden-based Ovzon. Liftoff of the rocket is set at the opening of a ten-minute launch window that begins at 6:04 p.m. EST (2304 UTC). It will mark the second Falcon 9 flight in less than 24 hours, following the launch of 21 Starlink satellites from California late Tuesday.

The mission will send the Ovzon-3 satellite to geostationary orbit, marking the first, privately-funded Swedish satellite launched.

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage with commentary from the Cape beginning about an hour before liftoff.

“Sweden has a strong history with the satellite area, but this is a first for Sweden and I think that’s something we’re very proud of,” said Kristofer Alm, the Chief Marketing Officer for Ovzon. “And I think that Sweden is a very strong based to continue our development.”

Following liftoff on Wednesday, the satellite will spend the next three months reaching its orbital slot of 59.7 East. Once it gets there, Ovzon will begin its full testing campaign. The plan is that by mid-2024, the satellite will be full operational.

SpaceX launches its first orbital mission of 2024. The Starlink 7-9 mission featured the first six direct-to-cell satellites. Image: SpaceX

Update 9:31 p.m. EST: SpaceX adjusted the presumed liftoff time.

SpaceX is wasting no time in kicking off what it plans to be a historically busy year for orbital launches. The company launched its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket on a Starlink satellite mission Tuesday night.

Liftoff occurred at 7:44 p.m. PST (10:44 p.m. EST, 0344 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Among the 21 Starlink satellites launching Tuesday evening were the first six that will feature direct-to-cell capabilities.

This launch was originally planned for mid-December, but SpaceX ran into undisclosed issues in the run-up to launch and had to scrub the mission.

In a statement, SpaceX said that adding DTC will “enable mobile network operators around the world to provide seamless global access to texting, calling and browsing… on land, lakes or coastal waters.”

A PSLV-DL rocket stands tall at the First Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India. The rocket will launch the PSLV-C58 mission on Jan. 1, 2024 locally. Image: ISRO

The orbital launch calendar is set to begin just hours into the first day of 2024 based on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). At 0340 UTC (9:10 a.m. IST or 10:40 p.m. EST on Dec. 31), a rocket will liftoff from India to begin what will likely be another record-breaking global launch year.

A four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle with two solid rocket boosters, abbreviated to PSLV-DL, will launch with two spacecraft onboard: the X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) and the PSLV Orbital Experimental Module-3 (POEM-3). The mission has the designation of PSLV-C58.

This New Year’s Day flight will be the 60th launch of a PSLV rocket and the fourth of the PSLV-DL variant.

The mission marks India’s first foray into X-ray astronomy. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) describes XPoSat as “the first dedicated scientific satellites from ISRO to carry out research in space-based polarization measurements of X-ray emission from celestial sources.”

The agency said the aim of the orbital observatory is to learn more about the degree and angle of polarization in hopes of better understanding the emissions from things, like neutron stars, pulsar wind nebulae, black holes and more.

A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from the fog surrounding Space Launch Complex 40 on the Starlink 6-36 mission. This was the 72nd and final orbital launch of 2023 from the Cape. Image: Spaceflight Now

SpaceX completed double-header launch night as the end of the year approaches. A Falcon 9 rocket launched the Starlink 6-36 mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11:01 p.m. EST (0401 UTC) on Thursday.

This mission comes on the heels of the Falcon Heavy launch, sending the X-37B military spaceplane to orbit.

The two missions launched 2 hours 48 minutes and 40 seconds apart, marking the fastest turnaround between orbital launches from Florida since the launches of the Agena Target Vehicle and Gemini 8 on March 16, 1966, which were 1 hour 40 minutes and 59 seconds apart.

The booster supporting this mission is tail number B1069, which made its 12th flight. This was the ninth time the booster lifted off from Space Launch Complex-40 (SLC-40). It’s other three launches were from historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

It first launched SpaceX’s 24th Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-24) mission and would go on to launch seven Starlink missions as well.

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket stands ready to launch the X-37B military spaceplane on Dec. 11, 2023. The mission was scrubbed due to poor weather and ground issues in mid-December. Image: Adam Bernstein

For the second time this month, SpaceX is gearing up to launch the X-37B military spaceplane onboard its Falcon Heavy rocket. Liftoff of the USSF-52 mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is set for 8:07 p.m. EST (0107 UTC) on Thursday at the opening of a ten-minute launch window.

The launch attempt comes after SpaceX and the U.S. Space Force had to delayed the mission from Dec. 11 due to “a ground side issue”. The Falcon Heavy was returned to its hangar on Dec. 14 with SpaceX no longer sayingthe vehicle remained ‘healthy’ in its social media posts.

SpaceX didn’t elaborate on the reason or reasons for the delay, but multiple sources tells Spaceflight Now that at least one engine had to be replaced on the Falcon Heavy rocket. A second static fire test was deemed unnecessary, which allowed SpaceX to get in another launch attempt before the end of the year and reschedule the mission for Dec. 28.

Onboard the three-core rocket is the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV). This will be the seventh launch in the program’s history since 2010 and the fourth flight of Vehicle 2 the second of two craft in the OTV fleet.

Spaceflight Now will have live coverage of the launch from the Kennedy Space Center starting about 1.5 hours ahead of liftoff.

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The remains of Falcon 9 booster 1058 arrive at Port Canaveral after the vehicle toppled over and broke apart in bad weather. Image: Steven Young/Spaceflight Now.

A piece of America’s space history is now on the ocean’s floor. During its return voyage to Port Canaveral in Central Florida, a SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster toppled over and broke in half.

This particular booster, tail number B1058, was coming back from its record-breaking 19th mission when it had its fatal fall. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Dec. 23 carrying 23 Starlink satellites. The booster made a successful landing eight and a half minutes after launch on the drone ship ‘Just Read the Instructions’ which was stationed east of the Bahamas. SpaceX said in a statement on social media that it succumbed to “high winds and waves.”

The company stated that “Newer Falcon boosters have upgraded landing legs with the capability to self-level and mitigate this type of issue.

In a separate post, Kiko Deontchev, the Vice President of Launch for SpaceX, elaborated by added that while they “mostly outfitted” the rest of the operational Falcon booster fleet, B1058 was left as it was, “given its age.” The rocket “met its fate when it hit intense wind and waves resulting in failure of a partially secured [octo-grabber] less than 100 miles from home.”

“We came up with self-leveling legs that immediately equalize leg loads on landing after experiencing a severe tippy booster two years ago on Christmas,” Deontchev wrote, referring to the first flight of the B1069 booster.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 is scheduled to launch the SARah 2 & 3 satellites for the German military. The twin craft, equipped with passive synthetic aperture radar reflectors, will liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base during an 83-minute window that opens at 5:11 a.m. PST / 8:11 a.m. EST / 1311 UTC on Sunday, Dec. 24.