Tag: CubeSats
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Chinese private company reaches orbit for first time
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated with orbital parameters. The Hyperbola 1 rocket lifted off Thursday from the Jiuquan space center in northwestern China’s Inner Mongolia region. Credit: i-Space A startup company named i-Space became the first Chinese private firm to achieve orbit Thursday with a successful launch of a light-class Hyperbola 1 booster. The Hyperbola 1 rocket carried…
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Rocket Lab announces August launch with commercial and military satellites
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated with orbital parameters, and identities of the U.S. Air Force Command satellites. The first stage for Rocket Lab’s next Electron launch. Credit: Rocket Lab Rocket Lab’s next launch from New Zealand in August will carry four small spacecraft into orbit for BlackSky’s Earth-imaging constellation, the U.S. Air Force, and a French startup developing…
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Soyuz rocket and Fregat upper stage deliver 33 satellites to three different orbits
A Soyuz-2.1b rocket lifted off at 0541 GMT (1:41 a.m. EDT) Friday from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in eastern Russia. Credit: Roscosmos A new Russian weather satellite, a CubeSat to test a Silicon Valley startup’s water-based propulsion system, and eight more members of Spire’s commercial fleet of nanosatellites were among 33 spacecraft that rode a Soyuz…
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Live coverage: Soyuz rideshare mission lifts off from Vostochny Cosmodrome
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia with 33 satellites on-board. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter. The Russian webcast of the launch will begin at 0440 GMT (12:40 a.m. EDT), and will be available on this page.
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Russian Soyuz launcher set to carry 33 satellites into orbit
Russian ground teams prepare to encapsulate the mission’s 33 satellite payloads, and their Fregat upper stage, inside the payload fairing of the Soyuz-2.1b booster at the Vostochny Cosmodrome. Credit: Roscosmos A Soyuz rocket is scheduled for liftoff Friday from the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia’s newest launch site, with 33 satellites from 12 countries on-board to collect…
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Newly-released videos show SpaceX payload fairing coming back to Earth
New videos released Wednesday by SpaceX show the payload fairing from the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket plunging back into the atmosphere after launch June 25, trailing a wake of haunting blue super-heated plasma before unfurling a parafoil and landing in the net of an offshore recovery ship. In one of the videos, tweeted by SpaceX,…
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More photos from SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy night launch
The predawn launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center of a Falcon Heavy rocket June 25 was the first nighttime liftoff of SpaceX’s heavy-lifter, the most powerful launcher currently operational anywhere in the world. The Falcon Heavy lifted off from pad 39A at 2:30 a.m. EDT (0630 GMT) with two dozen research, technology demonstration and weather…
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Rocket Lab flies again from New Zealand as work progresses at Virginia launch pad
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket lifts off from New Zealand on Saturday. Credit: Rocket Lab Rocket Lab’s third flight of the year delivered seven small commercial, military and educational satellites into orbit Saturday after a launch from New Zealand, while construction of a new launch pad in Virginia continues on pace for completion by the end…
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Launch timeline for Rocket Lab’s “Make it Rain” mission
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated June 28 to reflect new target launch date. Rocket Lab’s light-class Electron launcher is set to take off on its seventh flight from New Zealand, aiming for a 280-mile-high (450-kilometer) orbit with seven small satellites for commercial customers, the U.S. military and university students. The two-stage, 55-foot-tall (17-meter) rocket is scheduled for liftoff…
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Photos: Falcon Heavy lights up Florida’s Space Coast
The world’s most powerful operational rocket flashed to life at 2:30 a.m. EDT (0630 GMT) Tuesday and climbed into a moonlit summer sky from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the same site where the Apollo 11 astronauts left Earth for their historic moon landing nearly 50 years ago. The Falcon Heavy…