SpaceX

File: A Falcon 9 rocket stands ready to launch a Starlink mission. Image: SpaceX SpaceX sent 20 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit on a Friday morning Falcon 9 rocket departing from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Onboard the Starlink 9-17 mission were 13 satellites that include the Direct to Cell capability. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) happened at 6:50 a.m. PDT (9:50 a.m. EDT, 1350 UTC). Deployment of the satellites was confirmed by SpaceX shortly before 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) The Falcon 9 booster supporting this mission, tail number B1075 in the SpaceX fleet, flew for a 13th time. It previously supported the launches of the Transporter-11 rideshare mission, SDA-0A for the Space Development Agency and nine previous batches of Starlink satellites. A little more than...

A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, carrying a pair of Galileo navigation satellites. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now Update 7:23 p.m. EDT: SpaceX landed its first stage booster, B1067, on the droneship, ‘Just Read the Instructions.’ SpaceX launched the latest pair of Galileo spacecraft for the European Union’s navigation satellite constellation. The mission marked the second time that Galileo satellites will launch from U.S. soil, following the so-called L-12 mission, which flew on another Falcon 9 rocket back in April 2024. Liftoff of the L-13 mission from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 6:50 p.m. EDT (2250 UTC). Deployment is expected a little more than 3.5 hours after liftoff. Heading i...

NASA astronaut Don Pettit is seen in quarantine, behind glass, during a press conference, Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024 a the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Expedition 72 crew members: NASA astronaut Don Pettit, Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin, and Ivan Vagner, are scheduled to launch aboard their Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft on September 11. Photo Image: NASA/Bill Ingalls An astronaut and avid photographer journeyed back to space for a fourth time on Wednesday. NASA astronaut Don Pettit, first ventured to the International Space Station as a member of Expedition 6 in November 2003 and last returned from a trip to the orbiting outpost on July 1, 2012. Pettit departed for the ISS on the Soyuz MS-26 mission on Wednesday, Sept. 11, alongside Soyuz commander Alexey Ovchinin and fellow cosmo...

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 ...