The Falcon 9 rocket’s eighth flight of 2016 took off from Cape Canaveral early Sunday with the Japanese JCSAT 16 communications satellite, setting a new mark for the most launches made by SpaceX in a single year.
On its next mission set for liftoff later this month, Rocket Lab will try to recover the first stage of its Electron small satellite launcher after parachuting into the Pacific Ocean downrange from the company’s privately-run spaceport in New Zealand, officials announced Thursday.
Iran’s second try in less than a month to send a satellite into orbit apparently failed shortly after liftoff from a remote desert launch pad under daily surveillance from a fleet of commercial imaging spacecraft, according to U.S. government officials and independent analysts.