Mission Reports

Live coverage: Virgin Orbit’s air-launched rocket deploys seven smallsats in orbit

Virgin Orbit aims to build on two successful small satellite launches last year with another flight of its air-dropped rocket Thursday off the coast of California, this time carrying seven mini-payloads into low Earth orbit. The company’s Boeing 747 carrier aircraft departed Mojave Air and Space Port and released the LauncherOne rocket to begin its climb into orbit at 2:52 p.m. PST (5:52 p.m. EST; 2252 GMT).

Mission Reports

Astronomers relieved with final Webb telescope deployment milestone

Still cruising toward its operating orbit nearly a million miles from Earth, the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope completed a transformation into its final dimension Saturday with the last of some 50 post-launch deployments, the unfolding of the observatory’s 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) primary mirror. Many engineers considered it the most complicated series of spacecraft deployments ever attempted.