SpaceX

An artist’s impression of a Polaris Dawn astronaut flowing just outside the Crew Dragon capsule in the first commercial spacewalk. Graphic: SpaceX Billionaire Jared Isaacman and SpaceX crew trainer Sarah Gillis prepared to open the forward hatch of their Polaris Dawn spacecraft early Thursday to take turns floating outside in the first non-government spacewalk in the history of space exploration. With crewmates Anna Menon and Scott Poteet monitoring safety tethers and umbilicals inside the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, Isaacman and then Gillis plan to float out into open space after depressurizing the spacecraft around 2:23 a.m. EDT, using a scaffold-like “Skywalker” assembly extending just above the hatch for stability. While their feet will be just outside the capsule, they will not “free ...

The Polaris Dawn crew, seen earlier in the mission. Left to right: SpaceX crew trainer and spacewalker Sarah Gillis, pilot Scott Poteet, commander and lead spacewalker Jared Isaacman and SpaceX medical officer Anna Menon. Image: SpaceX. The Polaris Dawn crew closed out a record-setting commercial spaceflight and packed up Saturday for re-entry and a pre-dawn splashdown early Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico northwest of Key West, Florida. Flying along a southwest-to-northeast trajectory, the Crew Dragon capsule, carrying billionaire Jared Isaacman, pilot Scott Poteet and company engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis, is expected to fire its braking rockets at 2:40 a.m. EDT Sunday to drop out of orbit. Plunging back into the discernible atmosphere, the Crew Dragon’s protective heat shield will ...

Isaacman floats above the Crew Dragon’s hatch, taking in a spectacular view of Earth from 458 miles above the southern Indian Ocean. Image: SpaceX. In another SpaceX milestone, billionaire Jared Isaacman and company crew trainer Sarah Gillis took turns floating just outside their Crew Dragon capsule early Thursday in the first privately-financed spacewalk in the history of space exploration. As he took in his first unobstructed look at the Earth 458 miles below, Isaacman marveled at the serene, boundary-free view, saying “back at home, we all have a lot of work to do. But from here, it sure looks like a perfect world.” With Polaris Dawn crewmates Anna Menon and Scott Poteet monitoring safety tethers and umbilicals inside the SpaceX Crew Dragon, airless with its hatch open, Isaacman floated...

File: A Falcon 9 rocket stands ready to launch a Starlink mission. Image: SpaceX SpaceX launched its latest batch of 21 Starlink satellites on a Thursday night Falcon 9 launch from California. The Falcon 9 rocket launch set a new record for Vandenberg Space Force Base, marking the first time that 31 orbital missions have taken off in a calendar year. Thirty of those launches were from SpaceX and one was from Firefly Aerospace. Liftoff of the Starlink 9-6 mission from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) happened at 6:45 p.m. PDT (9:45 p.m. EDT, 0145 UTC). The Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, tail number B1071 in the SpaceX fleet, launched for an 18th time. It previously flew three missions for the National Reconnaissance Office (NROL-87, NROL-85 and NROL-146), two rid...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands ready to launch five of AST SpaceMobile’s BlueBird satellites from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Image: SpaceX A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is set to launch with the first five commercial satellites for AST SpaceMobile’s new cellular constellation. The satellites, called ‘BlueBird,’ are a precursor to the next generation of its satellites. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is set for 4:52 a.m. EDT (0852 UTC), which is the opening of a four-hour window. However, weather may prove to be a spoiler for the launch opportunity. Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about one hour prior to liftoff. Weather heading into the launch opportunity is far from ideal. The 45th Weather Squadron forec...