Small Explorers – Spaceflight Now

December 15, 2025

Breaking News

[ December 15, 2025 ] Live coverage: ULA Atlas 5 launch will put Amazon’s 180th broadband satellite in low Earth orbit Atlas 5
[ December 14, 2025 ] Falcon 9 launch of 29 Starlink satellites from the Kennedy Space Center delayed to Tuesday Falcon 9
[ December 14, 2025 ] SpaceX launches 100th Falcon 9 rocket from Florida in 2025 Falcon 9
[ December 13, 2025 ] SpaceX completes 550th booster landing amid Saturday night Falcon 9 flight Falcon 9
[ December 13, 2025 ] Blue Origin halfway through 4-flight certification to allow launch of national security missions Mission Reports

SpaceX wins NASA contract to launch X-ray telescope on reused rocket

July 8, 2019 Stephen Clark

NASA has selected a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket — flying with a reused first stage booster — to launch the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer mission from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in April 2021, bypassing Northrop Grumman’s air-launched Pegasus rocket for the task.

NASA selects missions to observe the sun and its impact on Earth

June 26, 2019 Stephen Clark

NASA has selected two satellite missions for launch on the same rocket in 2022 to investigate the origins of the solar wind and explore the interaction between magnetic fields around Earth with those from the sun.