News – Page 470 – Spaceflight Now

December 20, 2025

Breaking News

[ December 20, 2025 ] Space Development Agency awards roughly $3.5 billion to 4 companies for 72 missile tracking and warning satellites News
[ December 18, 2025 ] Rocket Lab launches 4 novel DiskSat satellites for U.S. Space Force, NASA Electron
[ December 18, 2025 ] Senate confirms Jared Isaacman as 15th NASA Administrator News
[ December 17, 2025 ] SpaceX flies Starlink mission using Falcon 9 booster flying for a 30th time Falcon 9
[ December 16, 2025 ] SpaceX launches Wednesday morning Starlink mission from Kennedy Space Center Falcon 9

Launcher for next space station crew in position for liftoff Friday

July 26, 2017 Stephen Clark

A Russian Soyuz rocket made a railroad journey Wednesday to its launch pad in Kazakhstan, two days before blastoff with a crew of three spaceflight veterans from the United States, Italy and Russia heading for the International Space Station.

Commercial lunar mission signs up with Atlas 5 for launch

July 26, 2017 Justin Ray

In a commercial push to return to the Moon while celebrating the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, Astrobotic Technology Inc. has contracted with United Launch Alliance to use an Atlas 5 rocket to send the Peregrine lander to the lunar surface in 2019.

Videos: Atlas 5 rocket assembled to launch NASA’s TDRS-M bird

July 26, 2017 Justin Ray

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket that will boost NASA’s latest communications relay satellite into space is targeting an Aug. 20 liftoff at 7:56 a.m. EDT (1156 GMT).

Musk sets expectations low for maiden Falcon Heavy launch

July 25, 2017 Stephen Clark

When SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket finally takes off for the first time, a debut now scheduled this fall, there’s a good chance the commercial heavy-lifter will falter short of reaching orbit, company founder and chief designer Elon Musk said last week.

NASA might privatize one of its great observatories

July 22, 2017 Stephen Clark

Management of NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope could be turned over to an academic institution or private operator in 2019 once the space agency’s funding for the observatory runs out, a senior NASA manager said this week.

Sierra Nevada confirms ULA will launch first two Dream Chaser cargo missions

July 22, 2017 Stephen Clark

Sierra Nevada and United Launch Alliance have announced the most powerful version of the Atlas 5 rocket, with five strap-on boosters and a twin-engine upper stage, will send the first two Dream Chaser cargo missions to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral in 2020 and 2021, a schedule that still must be confirmed by NASA.

Opportunity rover peers into ‘Perseverance Valley’

July 21, 2017 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Opportunity rover, now showing nearly 28 miles on its odometer since landing on Mars, recorded a panoramic view last month of its next scientific destination, a valley that may have been carved by water, an icy or muddy debris flow, or ancient Martian winds.

Study teams comb through NASA’s wish list for new telescope

July 21, 2017 Stephen Clark

Scientists outlining four concepts for a powerful new space telescope that could launch in the 2030s this week said improvements in optics, detectors and access to huge new rockets like NASA’s Space Launch System could revolutionize the way astronomers observe potentially habitable planets, black holes, and the earliest galaxies in the universe.

Propulsive landings nixed from SpaceX’s Dragon spaceship

July 19, 2017 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s upgraded Dragon capsules will not return astronauts to Earth for powered landings as originally envisioned, company boss Elon Musk said Wednesday, a design change that raises questions about the space transport firm’s plans to send commercial landers to the surface of Mars.

Soyuz liftoff glimpsed by orbiting observer and launch pad cameras

July 19, 2017 Stephen Clark

The launch of a Russian Soyuz rocket July 14 with more than 70 satellites was captured in multiple views from a sharp-eyed orbiting nanosatellite and cameras positioned around the launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.