Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Vega rocket rocket with the European Space Agency’s LISA Pathfinder mission. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
Mission Reports
Vega rocket deploys 53 satellites on successful return to flight mission
Delayed a year by a launch failure, the coronavirus pandemic and a stretch of stiff upper level winds this summer, an Italian-made Vega rocket vaulted into orbit from French Guiana on Wednesday night and deployed 53 small satellites from 13 countries to punctuate a flawless return to flight mission.
Falcon 9
Live coverage: Cargo Dragon arrives at space station
Loaded with more than 6,000 pounds of supplies, experiments, and hardware, a SpaceX Cargo Dragon freighter docked with the International Space Station at 1:40 p.m. EST (1840 GMT) Monday, one day after taking off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This was the first Dragon cargo mission to automatically dock with the space station.
Mission Reports
Live coverage: Proton rocket blasts off for first time in a year
A Russian Proton rocket launched at 0345 GMT Thursday (11:45 p.m. EDT Wednesday) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with the EchoStar 21 communications satellite, a hefty 7.6-ton telecommunications station designed to support a mobile network in Europe. Managed by U.S.-based International Launch Services, the mission will take more than nine hours to deliver EchoStar 21 into a geostationary transfer orbit using five burns of the Breeze M upper stage engine.