SpaceX

A merging of multiple photographs of SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster as it made its way down to be caught my the ‘Mechazilla’ launch tower during the Starlink Flight 5 mission on Oct. 13, 2024. Image: SpaceX Less than a month after launching its Starship rocket and catching its booster, SpaceX is targeting a sixth test flight of its gleaming stainless steel rocket which towers almost 400 feet tall (121 meters). The company announced on Wednesday a target launch date of Nov. 18, along with lessons learned from Flight 5 and mission objectives for Flight 6. Unlike every other mission launch, this time around, SpaceX didn’t need to hedge its bets on the timing of the launch based on regulatory approval. When the Federal Aviation Administration cleared the Flight 5 mission, they also approved the ...

File: A Falcon 9 rocket stands ready to launch a Starlink mission. Image: SpaceX SpaceX has delayed a Falcon 9 rocket launch from California on Wednesday, just hours after it scrubbed a Falcon 9 launch from Florida. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force base is now scheduled for Friday at 10:16 p.m. PST (1:16 a.m. EST, 0616 UTC on Saturday). SpaceX did not immediately provide an explanation for the two day delay. The Starlink 9-10 mission will add another 20 satellites to the growing megaconstellation in low Earth orbit. Among them are 13 satellites that include Direct to Cell capabilities.   Spaceflight Now will have live coverage beginning about 30 minutes prior to liftoff.  The Falcon 9 first stage booster for this mission, tail number B1081 in the...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket liftoff from Launch Complex 39A to begin the Cargo Resupply Services 31 (CRS-31) to the International Space Station for NASA. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now SpaceX launched its 31st resupply mission to the International Space Station on Monday night. The mission, dubbed Commercial Resupply Services-31 (CRS-31) ferried more than 6,000 pounds of cargo and science experiments to the orbiting outpost. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) happened at 9:29 p.m. EST (0229 UTC).  The Cargo Dragon spacecraft, C208, made its fifth trip to the ISS. It previously flew on CRS-21, 23, 25 and 28. It will take about 13 hours after liftoff to reach the space station. It got an initial boost from the Falcon 9 first stage booster, B1083. It too made...

Super Heavy Booster 12 returns to the pad it launched from just seven minutes earlier. Image: Adam Bernstein / Spaceflight Now. NASA’s plan to return humans to the surface of the Moon needs several puzzle pieces to come together in time, one of which is the lunar lander itself. For the first two planned crewed landings, that capability is coming from SpaceX and its Starship rocket. A variant of the rocket’s upper stage, referred to as Starship or just Ship, will be used on the Artemis 3 mission. The lander will dock with the Lockheed Martin-built Orion spacecraft and bring two astronauts down to the surface of the Moon and back up again.  While the Starship program had its genesis in 2012, NASA didn’t formally entered the picture until it awarded SpaceX a $2.89 billion contract in 2021, m...

The Falcon 9 at sunrise Thursday, Oct. 24, 2024 as final preparations were made for the NROL-167 mission. Image: SpaceX. SpaceX launch its fourth mission of the year for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) carrying satellites for its so-called “proliferated architecture,” which are believed to be Starshield satellites. The mission, dubbed NROL-167, added an unspecified number of satellites to the growing constellation. Liftoff happened at 10:13 a.m. PDT (1:13 p.m. EDT, 1713 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base. The Thursday morning flight marked the 100th Falcon 9 launch for SpaceX in 2024. This number includes the launch failure during the Starlink 9-3 mission in July when an upper stage issue caused SpaceX to fail in placing the satellites i...