Launch – Page 13 – Spaceflight Now

Live coverage: Arianespace launches Vega rocket from French Guiana

April 28, 2021 Stephen Clark

After two of the last three Vega rocket launches ended in failure, Arianespace launched another Vega launcher from French Guiana at 9:50 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0150 GMT Thursday) with Airbus’s Pléiades Neo 3 commercial Earth observation satellite and five secondary payloads.

Vega rocket’s return-to-flight launch set for Wednesday night

April 28, 2021 Stephen Clark

Six satellites are set to ride a light-class European Vega rocket into orbit from French Guiana on Wednesday night, the first Vega launch since a failure last year that officials attributed to human error.

Live coverage: SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites

April 28, 2021 Stephen Clark

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 11:44 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0344 GMT Thursday) from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station with the next 60 Starlink internet satellites. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster landed on SpaceX’s drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean nearly nine minutes after launch, completing its seventh trip to space and back.

NASA barge delivers first SLS core stage to Kennedy Space Center

April 27, 2021 Stephen Clark

The core stage of NASA’s first Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday evening aboard a specially-built barge, completing a voyage by sea from a test site in Mississippi to begin final preparations for the first flight of NASA’s Artemis Moon program. Ground crews plan to transport the core stage into the Vehicle Assembly Building beginning around 5:30 a.m. EDT (0930 GMT) Thursday to join its two solid rocket boosters.

SpaceX to resume Starlink flights, stretching reused Falcon rockets to their limits

April 27, 2021 Stephen Clark

SpaceX aims to resume launching satellites for its Starlink internet network with the liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday night at Cape Canaveral, and company founder Elon Musk says SpaceX will use the sizeable backlog of Starlink missions to keep pushing the envelope and find the Falcon booster’s reuse life limit.

Spy satellite successfully launched from California military base

April 26, 2021 Stephen Clark

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket climbed into orbit Monday from a military base northwest of Los Angeles, delivering to space a classified U.S. government spy satellite as large as a school bus and leaving just three Delta rockets left to fly before retirement.

Photos: Delta 4-Heavy rocket awaits liftoff from historic SLC-6 launch pad

April 26, 2021 Stephen Clark

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket is awaiting liftoff with a classified U.S. government spy satellite at Vandenberg Air Force Base’s historic Space Launch Complex-6, a picturesque rocket facility that was once intended to support launches of military astronauts and space shuttles.

Live coverage: ULA’s heavy-lift rocket lifts off from California

April 26, 2021 Stephen Clark

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 1:47 p.m. PDT (4:47 p.m. EDT; 2047 GMT) Monday with a classified satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency.

OneWeb adds 36 more satellites to internet network

April 26, 2021 Stephen Clark

A Soyuz rocket lifted off Sunday from Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East with 36 internet satellites built on Florida’s Space Coast for OneWeb, bringing the company’s fleet to 182 spacecraft, more than a quarter of the way to building out a constellation of nearly 650 orbiting relay nodes.

One of ULA’s four remaining Delta 4 rockets set to launch from California

April 25, 2021 Stephen Clark

United Launch Alliance ground crews on California’s Central Coast are gearing up to send a classified U.S. government spy satellite into orbit as soon as Monday — weather permitting — aboard one of the company’s four remaining Delta 4-Heavy rockets.