SpaceX launched one of its reusable Falcon 9 rocket boosters for the last time Saturday on a rare expendable mission for Intelsat, devoting all of the launcher’s propellant toward placing a pair of television broadcasting satellites into orbit. Intelsat says it paid SpaceX an additional fee for the expendable mission.
The final launch of an Atlas 5 rocket from California took off early Thursday with NOAA’s JPSS 2 weather satellite and the LOFTID re-entry tech demo experiment for NASA. The Atlas 5 rocket launched at 1:49 a.m. PST (4:49 a.m. EST; 0949 GMT) Thursday from Vandenberg Space Force Base. United Launch Alliance has 19 more Atlas 5s slated to launch from Florida before the rocket’s retirement.
SpaceX has pushed back the flight of its next Falcon 9 rocket from Tuesday to Saturday as Subtropical Storm Nicole threatens the east coast of Florida, officials said Monday. But NASA is keeping its Artemis 1 moon rocket on the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center in preparation for a launch attempt next week.
Using its second-to-last Antares rocket with Russian engines before a redesign to rely on all-U.S. propulsion, Northrop Grumman sent a Cygnus supply ship into orbit from Virginia on Monday to deliver spacewalk equipment, experiments, and fresh treats for the crew on the International Space Station. Ground teams only confirmed one of the two solar arrays deployed after launch, but engineers believe the spacecraft has enough power to reach the station and complete its primary mission.
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