Falcon 9

Engineers investigating the Oct. 12 launch failure of a Japanese Epsilon rocket have traced the problem to the attitude control system on the second stage, Japan’s space agency said Tuesday.

An Airbus-built communications satellite rocketed into orbit early Saturday from Cape Canaveral on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher, bound for a high-altitude perch in geostationary orbit to beam hundreds of TV and radio channels to Eutelsat customers across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off 1:22 a.m. EDT (0522 GMT) Saturday with Eutelsat’s Hotbird 13F television broadcasting satellite. The marked the 100th launch by SpaceX from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

The first in a new line of Airbus-built communications satellites is stowed for launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Friday night from Cape Canaveral, ready for a mission to beam hundreds of TV channels to Eutelsat customers across Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa.

SpaceX launched a pair of four-ton Intelsat communications spacecraft from Cape Canaveral at twilight Saturday evening, two days later than planned after back-to-back scrubs, on the third flight of a Falcon 9 rocket this week.

A pair of TV broadcasting satellites for Intelsat launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Saturday at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT). SpaceX aborted a countdown Thursday due to a small helium leak, then called off another launch attempt Friday evening for allow time for additional vehicle checkouts.

For the third time in 31 hours, SpaceX is poised to fire a Falcon 9 rocket into space Thursday, this time on a mission from Cape Canaveral with two commercial Intelsat television broadcasting satellites heading for geostationary orbit as part of a multibillion-dollar program to clear C-band frequencies for 5G wireless services.

Seven hours after a Falcon 9 launcher carried a four-person crew into orbit from Florida, SpaceX sent aloft another Falcon 9 from a foggy California spaceport Wednesday evening with 52 more Starlink internet satellites, setting a new record for the shortest interval between two flights of SpaceX’s workhorse rocket.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California with 52 Starlink internet satellites, following a two-day delay to allow more time for pre-flight checkouts and to give priority to launch of a SpaceX crew mission launch from Florida. Liftoff of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg occurred at 4:10 p.m. PDT (7:10 p.m. EDT; 2310 GMT).