SpaceX

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...

United Launch Alliance (ULA) hoists its Vulcan first stage booster into the Vertical Integration Facility-G (VIF-G) adjacent to Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The rocket will launch the USSF-106 mission for the U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command, Vulcan’s first national security flight. Image: United Launch Alliance Less than a month after the second of two planned certification launches, United Launch Alliance is getting a Vulcan rocket ready for its first national security mission: United States Space Force 106 (USSF-106). On Monday, ULA shared photos of the 109.2-foot-long (33.3 m) booster being hoisted into the Vertical Integration Facility to begin the stacking process. In the days and possibly weeks to come, the 38.5-foot-long (11.7 m) C...

A Falcon 9 stands ready for a Starlink mission at Cape Canaveral’s pad 40. File photo: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now. Update Oct. 21, 4:20 p.m.: SpaceX is pushing back its planned launch to no earlier than Tuesday, Oct. 22. SpaceX is set to launch another batch of 23 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to low Earth orbit on Tuesday. The Falcon 9 rocket launch comes on the heels of a week that saw the company launch a record six missions with four Falcon 9 rockets, one Falcon Heavy rocket and a Starship rocket, utilizing all four of its launch pads. Liftoff of the Starlink 6-61 mission from pad 40 at CCSFS is set for no earlier than 6:14 p.m. EDT (2214 UTC), pending weather. This will be SpaceX’s 68th dedicated Starlink launch of the year. Spaceflight Now will have ...

The final two satellites in a batch of 20 OneWeb Gen. 1 satellites are deployed at the tail end of the OneWeb Launch #20 mission. Image: SpaceX SpaceX completed its 100th orbital launch of the year for its Falcon family of rockets late Saturday night in California. It reach this first-time milestone by launching OneWeb’s final batch of its first generation internet satellites. The mission, dubbed OneWeb Launch #20, lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 10:13 p.m. PDT on Saturday, Oct. 19 (1:13 a.m. EDT, 0513 UTC on Sunday, Oct. 20). The Falcon 9 first stage booster for this mission, tail number B1082 in the SpaceX fleet, launched for a seventh time. It previously supported USSF-62 and five Starlink missions. A little less than eight minutes after liftoff, B1082 returned to Vanden...