News Archive
Browse every article published on Spaceflight Now, from launch reports and mission previews to spacecraft development coverage. Use the filters to narrow by topic or search by keyword.
Matching Articles
460 articles
VideoWatch a live view of the Falcon 9 rocket on the launch pad
Bad weather offshore has forced SpaceX and NASA to delay Thursday's planned launch of the Crew Dragon by a day. Better conditions are expected on Friday for a 5:49 a.m. EDT (0949 GMT) liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center.
VideoApril 12 marks 60 years since Gagarin’s spaceflight, 40 years since shuttle debut
Sixty years ago Monday, a 27-year-old Russian test pilot named Yuri Gagarin strapped into a Vostok capsule in Central Asia and rode into orbit atop a launcher derived from a Soviet nuclear missile, becoming the first human to travel into the void of space. Twenty years later, in 1981, the era of reusable spacecraft dawned with the first launch of NASA’s space shuttle.
VideoLive coverage: Soyuz launches with next space station crew
Veteran Russian commander Oleg Novitskiy, rookie flight engineer Pyotr Dubrov, and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei launched into orbit Friday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 3:42 a.m. EDT (0742 GMT). The crew members rode a Soyuz capsule in pursuit of the International Space Station, where docking occurred at 7:05 a.m. EDT (1105 GMT).
VideoLive coverage: SpaceX crew capsule moves to new space station docking port
Four astronauts strapped into their SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft Monday and rode along for an automated maneuver to relocate the capsule to a different docking port outside the International Space Station. The relocation maneuver, which concluded with a link-up with the new docking port 7:08 a.m. EDT (1108 GMT), was the first of its kind for a Crew Dragon spacecraft.
VideoLive coverage: Rocket Lab launches small satellites from New Zealand
Rocket Lab's second mission of 2021 lifted off at 6:30 p.m. EDT (2230 GMT) Monday from New Zealand carrying six small satellites for customers in Australia and the United States, along with a test platform for a NASA small satellite mission to the moon launching later this year.
VideoLive coverage: NASA completes eight-minute Space Launch System hot fire test
NASA fired up four hydrogen-fueled main engines on the core stage of the first Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket Thursday in on a test stand in Mississippi, a redo of a crucial hot fire test that was cut short in January by technical issues. The engines burned more than eight minutes in an apparently successful test.
VideoSpaceX nails Starship landing, but rocket explodes minutes later
The latest prototype of SpaceX's Starship launch vehicle -- Starship SN10 -- took off from the company's South Texas test site and flew to an altitude of more than 30,000 feet Wednesday, then descended to a controlled vertical landing after two previous test vehicles crashed at touchdown. Minutes later, the 16-story test rocket exploded in a fireball, but the test flight appeared to be a major step forward in the early stages of the Starship program.
VideoLive coverage: Space Station cargo mission arrives at destination
The 15th resupply mission to the International Space Station by a Cygnus cargo freighter lifted off at 12:36 p.m. EST (1736 GMT) Saturday aboard an Antares rocket from Wallops Island, Virginia. The Northrop Grumman-owned spacecraft is carrying more than 8,000 pounds of experiments and provisions for the space station and its seven-person crew. Capture by the station's robotic arm occurred at 4:38 a.m. EST (0938 GMT) Monday.
VideoRussian space station cargo freighter moved to launch pad in Kazakhstan
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.
VideoSpaceX Starship prototype lost in test flight landing mishap
SpaceX launched a prototype Starship rocket Tuesday from its Boca Chica, Texas, flight facility, successfully sending the silver booster up to an altitude of about six miles as planned. But the unpiloted test flight ended with a spectacular explosion when the rocket failed to right itself and slow down enough for a tail-first landing.