News – Page 215 – Spaceflight Now

September 24, 2025

Breaking News

[ September 24, 2025 ] Live coverage: SpaceX to launch NASA, NOAA missions exploring the impacts of the Sun Falcon 9
[ September 22, 2025 ] A geologist, a former SpaceX launch director and a commercial astronaut; meet NASA’s 10 new astronaut candidates News
[ September 22, 2025 ] NRO, SpaceX launch reconnaissance satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg SFB Falcon 9
[ September 20, 2025 ] SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites on Sunday sunrise Falcon 9 flight Falcon 9
[ September 17, 2025 ] SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Falcon 9

ULA delivers Vulcan test article to Cape Canaveral for ‘pathfinder’ operations

February 13, 2021 Stephen Clark

United Launch Alliance’s first full-scale Vulcan booster with two Blue Origin BE-4 engines arrived at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Saturday, the first time in more than a decade that a core stage from a new family of orbital-class rockets has rolled into the Florida launch facility.

SpaceX gearing up for two more Starlink missions within days

February 12, 2021 Stephen Clark

Days after SpaceX opened preorders for Starlink internet service, two more Falcon 9 rockets are set to launch from Florida’s Space Coast as soon as Sunday night and Wednesday morning — weather permitting — to help push the network closer to commercial operations.

Russian space station cargo freighter moved to launch pad in Kazakhstan

February 12, 2021 Stephen Clark

The Russian Progress MS-16 cargo freighter rolled out to its launch pad Friday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, its final stop before blastoff Sunday night with more than 5,000 pounds of fuel, food, and water for the International Space Station.

NASA seeking astronaut seat on Soyuz launch in April

February 11, 2021 Stephen Clark

NASA wants to fly an astronaut on Russia’s next Soyuz mission to the International Space Station in April, a measure the agency says would ensure a continued U.S. presence on the research outpost in case of delays in the launch of SpaceX’s next Crew Dragon flight.

NASA decides to launch Europa Clipper on commercial rocket in 2024

February 11, 2021 Stephen Clark

NASA has decided to launch the multibillion-dollar Europa Clipper mission — a spacecraft to study a moon of Jupiter with an icy crust covering a liquid water ocean — aboard a commercial heavy-lift rocket in October 2024, and not on the government-owned Space Launch System, officials said Wednesday.

Biden backs Artemis moon program; watchdog says it’ll cost $86 billion

February 10, 2021 Stephen Clark

The Biden administration supports continuing NASA’s Artemis program to return astronauts back to the moon, the White House said last week, without stating whether it will back away from the program’s already-in-doubt schedule for a lunar landing by the end of 2024.

China’s first Mars mission enters orbit around Red Planet

February 10, 2021 Stephen Clark

China placed is first spacecraft into orbit around Mars on Wednesday, continuing an international blitz on the Red Planet one day after the arrival of a spacecraft from United Arab Emirates and eight days before the landing of NASA’s Perseverance rover.

Arab world’s first interplanetary spacecraft safely arrives at Mars

February 9, 2021 Stephen Clark

The United Arab Emirates became the fifth nation or space agency to put a spacecraft into orbit around Mars on Tuesday with the arrival of Hope, a probe built in partnership with U.S. scientists to obtain a unique global perspective on the Red Planet’s weather and climate.

SpaceX wins contract to launch first pieces of NASA’s Gateway lunar outpost

February 9, 2021 Stephen Clark

NASA announced Tuesday it has awarded SpaceX a $331 million contract to launch the first two pieces of the Gateway lunar outpost in 2024 using a modified version of the Falcon Heavy rocket to hurl the massive core of the deep space station toward the moon.

Live coverage: United Arab Emirates probe arrives in orbit around Mars

February 9, 2021 Stephen Clark

The Emirates Mars Mission, the first deep space probe from the Arab world, steered into orbit around the Red Planet on Tuesday to cap a 307 million-mile (494 million-kilometer), 205-day interplanetary voyage from Earth and begin a science mission studying the Martian climate. The critical 27-minute Mars Orbit Insertion maneuver began at 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT).