News – Page 427 – Spaceflight Now

September 3, 2026

Breaking News

[ September 1, 2026 ] SpaceX launches Starlink mission from West Coast Falcon 9
[ August 29, 2026 ] Roman Space Telescope, NASA’s next ‘great observatory,’ launched Falcon Heavy
[ August 25, 2026 ] SpaceX launches 27 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Falcon 9
[ August 24, 2026 ] SpaceX launches Starlink mission on a Falcon booster’s record-breaking 37th flight Falcon 9
[ August 21, 2026 ] SpaceX launches 100th orbital mission of 2026 Falcon 9

Live coverage: InSight Mars mission lifts off from California aboard Atlas 5 rocket

May 3, 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA’s InSight spacecraft, the next lander to head for Mars, lifted off Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. Launch occurred in a blanket of fog at 4:05 a.m. PDT (7:05 a.m. EDT; 1105 GMT).

Live coverage: Upgraded Falcon 9 rocket test-fired at pad 39A

May 3, 2018 Stephen Clark

SpaceX conducted the first hold-down firing of an upgraded version of the Falcon 9 rocket Friday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, in preparation for launch next week with Bangladesh’s first communications satellite.

Firefly’s commercial satellite launcher to use Delta 2 pad at Vandenberg

May 2, 2018 Stephen Clark

A commercial rocket under development by Firefly Aerospace will conduct its first orbital test flight in 2019 from a launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California that will become vacant with the retirement of the venerable Delta 2 booster later this year, the company announced Tuesday.

Dragon cargo craft’s return to Earth delayed to Saturday

May 1, 2018 Stephen Clark

A commercial Dragon cargo capsule will remain at the International Space Station until Saturday, three days later than previously planned due to high sea states observed by the SpaceX recovery team in the spaceship’s splashdown zone in the Pacific Ocean.

Managers clear InSight for launch after heat shield review

May 1, 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA officials have determined that the robotic InSight lander is ready for its mission to Mars after concluding that the probe should not suffer the same flaw that led to a crack in a heat shield undergoing tests for the space agency’s Mars 2020 rover, InSight’s chief scientist said Monday.

NASA cancels lunar rover, shifts focus to commercial moon landers

May 1, 2018 Stephen Clark

As NASA turns up support for future commercial lunar landers, the space agency last week canceled a mission that would have placed a rover on the moon to survey resources, such as water and helium, that could be used by future human explorers.

Video: Blue Origin flies New Shepard rocket for eighth time

April 29, 2018 Stephen Clark

Blue Origin’s New Shepard booster, topped with a capsule carrying a dummy dubbed Mannequin Skywalker, took off Sunday from the company’s sprawling test site in West Texas on a 10-minute trip to the edge of space and back.

Suborbital test flight moves Blue Origin closer to launching people

April 29, 2018 Stephen Clark

The privately-developed New Shepard booster, designed and built by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’s space company Blue Origin, took off from a launch pad in West Texas, briefly flew into space with an instrumented capsule, and returned to a rocket-assisted landing Sunday in another test before humans climb aboard the suborbital spaceship.

Photos: NASA’s InSight lander buttoned up for trip to Mars

April 29, 2018 Stephen Clark

Now cocooned inside a heat shield and the nose shroud of an Atlas 5 rocket that will send it to Mars, NASA’s InSight lander is awaiting launch May 5 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

NASA to replace cracked heat shield in time for Mars 2020 rover launch

April 28, 2018 Stephen Clark

NASA officials plan to replace the Mars 2020 rover’s heat shield after engineers discovered a crack in the structure earlier this month, but managers anticipate no delay in the mission’s scheduled launch date a little more than two years away.