China’s Tiangong space station received a new room Sunday with the docking of the Wentian laboratory module, a half-day after launching on a heavy-lift Long March 5B rocket. The three-person crew on the Chinese space station later opened hatches and floated inside the new science module for the first time.
SpaceX sent another cluster of 53 Starlink internet satellites into orbit Sunday aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, the company’s 33rd mission of the year and sixth launch of July. Liftoff from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida occurred at 9:38 a.m. EDT (1338 GMT). The Falcon 9 booster landed on SpaceX’s drone ship parked downrange in the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Cape Canaveral.
SpaceX test-fired a Falcon 9 rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Saturday in preparation for liftoff Sunday with the company’s next batch of 53 Starlink internet satellites. Test-firings on the launch pad were once a customary part of every SpaceX launch campaign, but the company is phasing out the static fire tests for most missions as the Falcon 9 launch cadence has ramped up to an average of one flight per week
SpaceX’s 32nd launch of 2022 broke the company’s record for most Falcon 9 rocket flights in a calendar year, and cut in half the shortest turnaround time between two Falcon 9 launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket with 46 more Starlink internet satellites occurred Friday at 10:39 a.m. PDT (1:39 p.m. EDT; 1739 GMT). A launch attempt Thursday was scrubbed with less than a minute remaining in the countdown.
© 1999-2025 Spaceflight Now Inc