April 2023 – Page 2 – Spaceflight Now

Falcon Heavy rocket rolls back to launch pad after engine swap

April 25, 2023 Stephen Clark

SpaceX rolled a Falcon Heavy rocket back to its launch pad in Florida Tuesday night for liftoff Thursday with a high-power Viasat broadband satellite, following an eight-day delay for a launch vehicle engine swap.

Live coverage: Contact lost with Japanese moon lander

April 25, 2023 Stephen Clark

A commercial robotic lander developed by the Japanese company ispace was supposed to land on the moon at 12:40 p.m. EDT (1640 UTC) Tuesday, attempting to make history as the first privately-funded enterprise to achieve a controlled touchdown on the lunar surface. But mission controllers lost contact with the spacecraft just before landing.

Emirati orbiter captures up-close view of Martian moon Deimos

April 25, 2023 Stephen Clark

The United Arab Emirates’ Hope probe has seen the far side of the Martian moon Deimos up close for the first time, collecting compositional data suggesting it may have formed from material that broke off of Mars long ago, and not from a captured asteroid.

Japanese company aims to become first company to land on the moon Tuesday

April 24, 2023 Stephen Clark

The Japanese company ispace could become the first commercial firm to achieve a controlled landing on the moon Tuesday, when its privately-funded unpiloted Hakuto-R lander attempts to touch down inside a crater to deliver a small Emirati rover and other research payloads to the lunar surface.

India’s PSLV launches with two Singaporean satellites

April 22, 2023 Stephen Clark

An Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle lifted off Saturday and flew to an altitude of more than 360 miles to deploy two Singaporean satellites, one for all-weather radar imaging surveillance and another for technology demonstrations.

SpaceX launches largest rocket ever built, but test flight ends in explosion

April 20, 2023 Stephen Clark

After years of anticipation, SpaceX launched the first test flight of its full-scale Starship rocket Thursday from South Texas, but the mission ended four minutes later as the vehicle veered out of control and self-destructed over the Gulf of Mexico following multiple engine failures.

Live coverage: SpaceX’s Starship rocket explodes on test flight from Texas

April 20, 2023 Spaceflight Now

SpaceX launched the first full-scale Starship and Super Heavy rocket from South Texas at 8:33 a.m. CDT (9:33 a.m. EDT; 1333 UTC Thursday). The nearly 40-story-tall rocket, the largest ever built, lifted off from the Starbase launch complex and flew downrange before veering out of control and exploding about four minutes into the flight.

Video from Starbase: SpaceX prepares for second Starship launch attempt

April 19, 2023 Stephen Clark

Spaceflight Now’s Stephen Clark reports from Starbase in South Texas as SpaceX prepares the largest rocket in history for a second launch attempt after calling off a launch attempt Monday due to a valve problem.

Elon Musk’s success criteria for Starship test flight: “Don’t blow up the launch pad”

April 19, 2023 Stephen Clark

Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, did his best to set low expectations heading into the first test flight of the gargantuan Super Heavy booster and Starship rocket this week. “Just don’t blow up the launch pad,” Musk said.

SpaceX resumes launching upgraded Starlink satellites

April 19, 2023 Stephen Clark

SpaceX resumed launches of upgraded second-generation Starlink internet satellites Wednesday from Cape Canaveral, nearly two months after some spacecraft in the first batch of larger, more capable “Starlink V2 Mini” satellites ran into problems soon after liftoff.