NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said teams were meeting at the Kennedy Space Center on Friday, Dec. 20, to make some of the final determinations about how they will return dozens of samples from the Red Planet.
This is the second batch of customer satellites that SpaceX will launch to a mid-inclination orbit. Liftoff from pad 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 3:34 a.m. PST (6:34 a.m. EST, 1134 UTC).
The mission, dubbed ‘Astranis: From One to Many,’ includes the company’s new UtilitySat, which is designed to relocate within geostationary Earth orbit over its life to respond to different mission objectives.
This is will be the fourth pair of O3b mPOWER satellites launched to a medium Earth orbit. Liftoff from Launch Complex 39A is set for 5:26 p.m. EST (2226 UTC).
The U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command (SSC) and the Space Operations Command (SpOC) shifted the GPS 3 Space Vehicle 07 spacecraft to a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket due to delays in Vulcan’s certification.
The NROL-149 mission was the sixth and final mission of the year supporting the agency’s proliferated architecture. Liftoff from pad 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 5:19 a.m. PST (8:19 a.m. EST, 1319 UTC).
The payload onboard hasn’t been officially confirmed by a customer or the spacecraft manufacturer. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened Monday, Dec. 16, at 7:51 p.m. EST (0051 UTC).
The launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base came on the heels of leaders from the U.S. Space Force gathering to discuss how to adjust to a rapidly increasing launch cadence for both the Eastern Range and Western Range. Liftoff happened at 1:55 p.m. PST (4:55 p.m. EST, 2155 UTC).
The Starlink 12-5 mission includes 13 satellites featuring Direct to Cell capabilities. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 12:12 a.m. EST (0512 UTC).
NASA announced new delays for the Artemis Moon program at a news conference at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The Artemis 2 mission to circle the Moon is now scheduled for 2026 and the first lunar landing is delayed to 2027.