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Live coverage: Virgin Orbit’s air-launched rocket deploys seven smallsats in orbit
Virgin Orbit aims to build on two successful small satellite launches last year with another flight of its air-dropped rocket Thursday off the coast of California, this time carrying seven mini-payloads into low Earth orbit. The company’s Boeing 747 carrier aircraft departed Mojave Air and Space Port and released the LauncherOne rocket to begin its climb into orbit at 2:52 p.m. PST (5:52 p.m. EST; 2252 GMT).
Live coverage: SpaceX launches Falcon 9 rocket with 105 satellites
SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Thursday from Cape Canaveral with 105 satellites ranging from the size of a soda can to a washing machine. Liftoff occurred at 10:25 a.m. EST (1525 GMT), and the Falcon 9’s first stage booster returned to Florida’s Space Coast for a propulsive landing about eight-and-a-half minutes later.
Astronomers relieved with final Webb telescope deployment milestone
Still cruising toward its operating orbit nearly a million miles from Earth, the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope completed a transformation into its final dimension Saturday with the last of some 50 post-launch deployments, the unfolding of the observatory’s 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) primary mirror. Many engineers considered it the most complicated series of spacecraft deployments ever attempted.