Mission Reports

The first satellite in a nearly billion-dollar program to provide the German military with improved radar surveillance imagery from space is set to rocket into a polar orbit Saturday from California’s Central Coast on a SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher.

Engineers have made progress in attempts to fully unfurl a solar array wing that snagged on NASA’s Lucy asteroid explorer shortly after launch last October, adding to optimism that the spacecraft can complete its 12-year mission as planned.

The first test flight of a commercial orbital transfer vehicle from Momentus is suffering from a problem with its solar panels after launching last month on a SpaceX rocket, and the company said Monday that its confidence in completing the spacecraft’s demonstrations has “substantially declined.”

The FAA is requiring SpaceX take more than 75 actions to reduce the environmental effects of flying its gigantic 40-story-tall Starship rocket from South Texas, but regulators said Monday they found no significant impacts and moved SpaceX a step closer to receiving a launch license.

Two small NASA hurricane research satellites were destroyed after launch from Cape Canaveral Sunday when their commercial rocket, provided by Astra, prematurely shut down its upper stage engine before reaching the mission’s target orbit.