Mission Reports

Three Chinese astronauts launched at 9:22 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0122 GMT Thursday) aboard the Shenzhou 12 spacecraft. A Long March 2F rocket blasted off from northwest China and successfully carried the astronauts into orbit, setting the stage for their docking at the Tiangong space station about six hours later.

Two veteran Chinese astronauts and a first-time space flier will be the first crew members to live and work aboard China’s new space station after launching Wednesday from a remote spaceport in the Gobi Desert.

Three classified small satellites for the National Reconnaissance Office fired into orbit from the Eastern Shore of Virginia Tuesday, riding a Northrop Grumman Minotaur 1 booster with a surplus military missile first stage made in 1966, likely the oldest rocket part ever used on a space launch.

A Minotaur 1 rocket derived from a decommissioned ballistic missile took off at 9:35 a.m. EDT (1335 GMT) Tuesday from Wallops Island, Virginia, after a weather delay of more than two-and-a-half hours. The four-stage, solid-fueled rocket carried three payloads into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office.

Clad in a yellow thermal blanket that will peel away at liftoff, a 69-foot-tall Minotaur 1 rocket is standing on a launch pad at Wallops Island, Virginia, ready to deliver three small National Reconnaissance Office spacecraft to orbit.

A Minotaur 1 rocket powered by a surplus Cold War-era missile stage more than 54 years old is poised to blast off from the Eastern Shore of Virginia Tuesday morning, heading to orbit with three top secret spacecraft for the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency.