Mission Reports – Page 59 – Spaceflight Now

SpaceX sends 40 more OneWeb internet satellites into orbit

January 10, 2023 Stephen Clark

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Monday night with 40 more internet satellites for OneWeb, nudging the network closer to full operational capability. The Falcon 9 booster returned to Cape Canaveral for landing eight minutes later.

SpaceX’s first Starlink launch of 2023 set to fly from California

January 9, 2023 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s first launch of Starlink internet satellites this year was set to blast off from California’s Central Coast Monday night, but high winds and storms could stood in the way of the Falcon 9 rocket lifting off with 51 new broadband relay stations. Another launch attempt is planned Tuesday night.

Live coverage: Virgin Orbit rocket fails before reaching orbit on first UK mission

January 9, 2023 Stephen Clark

Virgin Orbit’s air-dropped LauncherOne rocket failed after release from the company’s Boeing 747 carrier aircraft over the Atlantic Ocean at approximately 6:08 p.m. EST (2308 GMT), following the plane’s departure from Spaceport Cornwall in South West England. The mission faltered before placing nine small spacecraft into orbit on the first satellite launch based out of the United Kingdom.

SpaceX cargo capsule undocks from space station, heads for splashdown

January 9, 2023 Stephen Clark

A SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule departed the International Space Station Monday to close out a month-and-a-half of docked operations, heading to a predawn splashdown Wednesday off the coast of Florida with several tons of hardware and experiment specimens.

Weather favorable for SpaceX’s late-night launch for OneWeb

January 9, 2023 Stephen Clark

SpaceX is set to deliver 40 more internet satellites into orbit for OneWeb with a late-night blastoff Monday from Cape Canaveral aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, followed by landing of the first stage booster back at the Florida spaceport less than 10 minutes later.

Virgin Orbit counting down to first historic satellite launch from British soil

January 8, 2023 Clive Simpson

A new chapter in spaceflight history will be made Monday when the first ever satellites to be launched into orbit from Western Europe begin their journey into space inside a rocket slung beneath a converted jumbo jet carrier aircraft that will take off from Cornwall on the southwest peninsula of England.

Launch preps underway for first of up to five Falcon Heavy missions this year

January 7, 2023 Stephen Clark

SpaceX is set to kick off a busy week of launch preparations at Kennedy Space Center for the first of five planned Falcon Heavy rocket missions this year, targeting a dusk departure no earlier than Friday evening from Launch Complex 39A on a flight for the U.S. Space Force.

Work begins to harvest Orion spacecraft hardware for Artemis 2 lunar flight

January 5, 2023 Stephen Clark

Fresh off the 1.4-million-mile Artemis 1 test flight around around the moon, NASA’s Orion spacecraft arrived Dec. 30 back at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where technicians will offload propellants and payloads, and begin removing internal hardware destined to fly back to the moon with astronauts on the next Orion crew capsule in 2024.

SpaceX launches 114 small satellites on first mission of 2023

January 3, 2023 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s first launch of the year fired away from Cape Canaveral Tuesday and hauled 114 small satellites into polar orbit for operators in 23 countries, deploying a range of payloads for tech demo, Earth observation, and communication missions.

Space solar power experiment, 36 Planet imaging satellites on SpaceX rideshare mission

January 2, 2023 Stephen Clark

The 114 small satellites set for launch Tuesday on SpaceX’s first mission of the year include 36 spacecraft for Planet’s commercial remote sensing fleet, a space-based solar power experiment, and space tugs to piggyback payloads into different orbits.