Live coverage of the countdown and launch of an H-2B rocket and Japan’s fifth H-2 Transfer Vehicle on a resupply flight to the International Space Station. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
Mission Reports
SpaceX about one month away from first commercial crew test flight
SpaceX founder Elon Musk said this weekend that the company is about one month away from launching the first Crew Dragon spacecraft on an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station, a precursor to a demonstration launch with astronauts later this year. He also warned that early test flights of the commercial crew capsule, built under contract to NASA, will be “especially dangerous.”
News
Soyuz rocket lifts off with 73 satellites
A Russian Soyuz booster lifted off Friday from Kazakhstan on a complex mission to deploy 73 satellites into three different orbits, including a Russian spacecraft to locate forest fires, 48 CubeSats for Planet’s global Earth observation fleet, and eight nanosatellites for Spire Global’s commercial weather network.