News – Page 696 – Spaceflight Now

August 28, 2026

Breaking News

[ 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
[ August 20, 2026 ] SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral following last-minute scrub Falcon 9
[ August 19, 2026 ] LandSpace becomes first commercial Chinese company to land an orbital-class booster Mission Reports

Europe’s re-entry demonstrator mated to Vega rocket

February 1, 2015 Stephen Clark

Launch crews in French Guiana have mounted an innovative European space plane on top of a solid-fueled Vega launcher for a Feb. 11 suborbital test flight.

H-2A rocket boosts Japanese radar spy satellite into orbit

February 1, 2015 Stephen Clark

Japan launched a new satellite Sunday to reinforce the country’s fleet of orbiting spy platforms charged with monitoring its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific.

Full story: Delta 2 rises to occasion with SMAP observatory

January 31, 2015 Justin Ray

The ever-dependable Delta 2 rocket continued its flawless service to NASA and Earth sciences Saturday with the launch of a $916 million environmental probe focused on producing global maps of soil moisture from space.

Live coverage: Proton soars into space with Inmarsat satellite

January 31, 2015 Stephen Clark

Russia’s Proton rocket took off on its first launch of the year Sunday with a commercial satellite to expand Inmarsat’s next-generation mobile communications network. Liftoff occurred at 1231 GMT (7:31 a.m. EST), and it took more than 15 hours to place the Inmarsat spacecraft in the correct orbit.

Video: Delta 2 blasts off from Vandenberg

January 31, 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive satellite blasts off aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket Saturday, launching into orbit on a three-year mission to measure moisture levels in Earth’s soils.

SpaceX nears pad abort test for human-rated Dragon capsule

January 30, 2015 Stephen Clark

SpaceX is finishing up preparations for a major test of a rocket-powered abort system for the company’s new Dragon crew ferry spacecraft, targeting launch from Cape Canaveral in March after a pair of Falcon 9 missions in February.

Inmarsat satellite ready for liftoff on Proton rocket

January 30, 2015 Stephen Clark

A Russian Proton rocket is scheduled to take off from Kazakhstan on Sunday with the second spacecraft to serve Inmarsat’s $1.6 billion next-generation satellite communications network geared for getting faster links to customers on the move.

Video: Preparing Delta 2 and SMAP for flight

January 29, 2015 Justin Ray

Narrated flow tapes of the United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket and NASA’s SMAP spacecraft for launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Photos: Gantry rollback from Delta 2

January 29, 2015 Justin Ray

The mobile service tower is retracted from the United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket at Vandenberg Air Force Base in preparation for the first launch attempt of NASA’s SMAP spacecraft.

Asteroid and its moon revealed in radar imagery

January 29, 2015 Stephen Clark

Radar imagery of a mountain-size asteroid that approached Earth this week revealed the tiny world has its own moon.