Privacy Policy
Overview
Spaceflight Now (“we,” “us,” or “our”) respects your privacy. This policy explains what information we collect when you visit spaceflightnow.com, how we use it, and the choices available to you.
Information We Collect
We may collect information in the following ways:
- Information you provide directly — for example, your name and email address when you contact us, sign up for updates, or leave a comment.
- Reader statistics — anonymous, aggregate figures about how the site is used, collected by our own system without cookies. See “Reader Statistics” below.
- Technical data — like any website, our host and its network keep short-lived server logs (for example IP address and browser type) to deliver pages and keep the site secure.
How We Use Information
We use the information we collect to operate and improve Spaceflight Now, respond to inquiries, send requested updates, and understand how our coverage is read and watched. We do not sell your personal information, and we do not run advertising trackers.
Cookies
We keep cookies to a minimum and use none for advertising or cross-site tracking. The ones you may encounter are:
- Security — our network provider, Cloudflare, sets a short-lived cookie (
__cf_bm) to tell people from automated bots. - Membership — if you sign in as a member, Memberful keeps you signed in.
- Payments and forms — Stripe (on the donation form) and Cloudflare Turnstile (on our forms) use cookies to prevent fraud and spam, only on the pages where you use them.
Your site settings (time zone, clock, light or dark appearance, which launches to show) are saved in your own browser’s storage so they are remembered on your next visit. They never leave your device.
Videos and Posts From Other Sites
Videos, live blogs, and social media posts in our articles load only when you choose to play or open them. Until then, nothing from YouTube, Vimeo, X, Instagram, or 24liveblog runs on the page. When you do press play or load a post, that service’s own privacy policy applies to it. YouTube videos play in YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com), and Vimeo videos are asked not to track you. Preview images for videos are fetched from YouTube’s image servers.
Reader Statistics
To learn which coverage people find useful, we run our own statistics system rather than a third-party analytics service. It records which pages are viewed, how long a page is actively read, how far down it is scrolled, the website that sent you (its domain only), your general device type and screen size, an approximate country taken from your browser’s time zone setting, searches made on our site, and which site features are used (for example opening a launch or changing the time zone).
It does not use cookies or store anything in your browser, and it does not keep IP addresses. To avoid counting the same reader twice in one day, it combines your IP address and browser details with a random value that changes every day and keeps only the scrambled result, so readers cannot be recognized from one day to the next or identified. Detailed records are kept for 90 days; after that only daily totals remain. The data is stored on our own server hosted by Fly.io and is not shared or sold.
If your browser sends a Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control signal, you are not counted at all.
Third-Party Services
We rely on outside services to run the site. Each one has its own privacy policy governing the data it collects, and some receive technical information such as your IP address when your browser loads their content.
- Memberful — runs membership sign-in, subscriptions, and account management. When you join or sign in, your name, email address, and billing details are handled by Memberful and its payment processor, not stored on our own servers.
- Stripe — processes donations (and Memberful’s membership payments). Card details go directly to Stripe; we never see or store them.
- YouTube (Google) and Vimeo — host the videos in our articles and on our live page. Article videos load only when you press play.
- X, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, Threads, and Twitch — social and video platforms we link to or embed content from. Embedded posts load only when you choose.
- 24liveblog — hosts some of our older live blogs, which load only when you open them.
- Cloudflare — protects the site against bots and attacks, and its Turnstile service protects our contact and donation forms from spam.
- Adobe Fonts and Google Fonts — deliver the typefaces used on the site.
- Shopify — powers our shop at shop.spaceflightnow.com, which has its own terms and privacy policy.
- Kinsta — hosts the site.
- Fly.io — hosts our reader statistics system and launch tracking data.
Your Choices
You can block or delete cookies through your browser settings; the site will still work, though members will need to sign in again. To opt out of reader statistics, turn on Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control in your browser. If you’d like to access, correct, or delete personal information you’ve provided to us, contact us using the details below.
Children’s Privacy
Spaceflight Now is not directed at children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by the “Last updated” date above.
Contact Us
Questions about this policy? Reach out via our Contact page.