SpaceX

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket lifts off the pad for the first time at Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Image: Pete Carstens/MaxQ Productions for Spaceflight Now Blue Origin entered into the history books in the predawn hours of Thursday. The company, founded by Jeff Bezos, became the first to successfully reach orbit on their first launch with a new orbital-class rocket in the new era of commercial spaceflight that dawned in the last two decades. After dealing with an unplanned hold to chill its engines and a wayward boat entering the keep out zone, the New Glenn rocket, standing as tall as a 32-story building lumbered off the pad under the power of 3.9 million pounds of thrust. The seven BE-4 engines on the first stage booster roared to life at 2:03 a.m. EST (0703...

Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lunar lander pictured atop a bespoke payload canister, which encased ispace’s Resilience lunar lander prior to encapsulation inside SpaceX’s Falcon 9 payload fairings. Image: SpaceX For the first time in lunar exploration, two robotic landers, from two different nations launched to the Moon on one rocket. But despite Texas-based Firefly Aerospace and Tokyo-based ispace sharing one SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the two missions are taking very different paths and timelines to reach the lunar surface. Liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center happened Jan. 15 at 1:11 a.m. EST (0611 UTC). The flight was the 100th orbital launch for SpaceX from the historic pad formerly used by Apollo and the Space Shuttle. Minutes after deployment, Firefly confirm...

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket stands at Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station prior to the rocket’s inaugural flight on the NG-1 mission. Image: Blue Origin Update 3:20 a.m. EST (0820 UTC): Blue Origin scrubbed the launch. Blue Origin is preparing to step into a new chapter of rocketry, by debuting its first orbital class rocket, New Glenn. It will also attempt to recover the first stage booster on landing platform the Atlantic Ocean. The company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was targeting the inaugural launch of New Glenn during a three-hour window on Monday, Jan. 13. However, launch teams ran into what they described as a “vehicle subsystem issue” that took longer to potentially resolve than they had time available in the window. A new launch date was still being ...

File: The Falcon 9 at sunrise Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024 as final preparations were made for the NROL-167 mission. Image: SpaceX. SpaceX is preparing for its first West Coast Falcon 9 launch of the year, which will feature the latest batch of Starshield satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office. Liftoff of the NROL-153 mission from pad 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base is set for 7:52 p.m. PST (10:52 p.m. EST, 0352 UTC). This will be SpaceX’s fourth orbital launch of the year. Spaceflight Now will have live coverage of the mission beginning about 30 minutes prior to liftoff.  The Falcon 9 first stage booster for this mission, tail number B1071 in the SpaceX fleet, will be launching for a 22nd time. It’s previous flights included three rideshare missions (Transporter-8, Transporte...

File: A stack of SpaceX Starlink satellites, which included the first six featuring Direct to Cell capabilities. The batch launched on the Starlink 7-9 mission, which lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Jan. 2, 2024. Image: SpaceX SpaceX is preparing to launch a batch of 21 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit, including 13 equipped to provide text and data cellphone service. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is scheduled for 10:27 a.m. EST (1527 UTC). If needed the launch window extends until 2:17 p.m. EST (1917 UTC) Wednesday afternoon. Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about an hour prior to liftoff.  On Monday, the 45th Weather Squadron forecast an 95 percent chance of favorable launch weather fo...