Arizona – Spaceflight Now

September 21, 2026

Breaking News

[ September 21, 2026 ] SpaceX’s Super Heavy booster arrives at pad ahead of first orbital Starship launch Mission Reports
[ September 19, 2026 ] Russian Progress cargo ship arrives at International Space Station News
[ September 19, 2026 ] SpaceX launches 27 Starlink V2 Mini satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Falcon 9
[ September 15, 2026 ] SpaceX launches national security payload for U.S. Space Force from Vandenberg Falcon 9
[ September 15, 2026 ] Avio launches pair of climate monitoring European spacecraft to study plants, oceans and atmospheric changes News

Orion’s parachutes tested under launch abort conditions

March 9, 2017 Stephen Clark

A model of NASA’s Orion spacecraft, in development to loft astronaut crews into deep space, was dropped from a U.S. Air Force cargo plane over Arizona on Wednesday in the latest in a series of tests to verify the capsule’s parachutes are up to the job of safely landing with humans on-board.

Iridium satellites rolling off assembly line in Arizona

July 13, 2016 Stephen Clark

Construction is complete on the first batch of 81 new satellites to overhaul Iridium’s mobile communications network, and the data relay stations will soon head from their factory near Phoenix to California’s hilly Central Coast for launch Sept. 11 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.