Mars 2022 – Spaceflight Now

November 7, 2025

Breaking News

[ November 7, 2025 ] Live coverage: SpaceX to launch 29 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Falcon 9
[ November 6, 2025 ] Issue with Atlas 5 booster liquid oxygen vent valve causes second scrub of ViaSat-3 F2 launch Atlas 5
[ November 6, 2025 ] SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg SFB Falcon 9
[ November 5, 2025 ] Atlas booster valve issue scrubs launch of ViaSat-3 F2 satellite Atlas 5
[ November 5, 2025 ] SpaceX launches 29 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Falcon 9

NASA developing plans for commercially-built Mars orbiter

July 27, 2016 Stephen Clark

NASA is advancing a plan to send a robotic orbiter to Mars in the early 2020s, developing designs with five U.S. satellite makers for a mission to extend high-resolution mapping capabilities, telecommunications relay functions, and potentially act as a waypoint for Martian soil samples destined for return to Earth.

NASA eyes ion engines for Mars orbiter launching in 2022

March 3, 2015 Stephen Clark

NASA officials want the agency’s next Mars orbiter to pull double duty as a communications relay station for a fleet of surface landers and as a trailblazer for a future round-trip sample return mission and human expeditions to the red planet.