Tag: SpaceX
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Falcon 9 finally launches with Italian CSG-2 Earth observation satellite
The Italian Space Agency’s CSG-2 mission, the second satellite in its COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation constellation, finally launched liftoff Monday at 6:11 PM EST (23:11 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40). The mission had suffered weather-related scrubs and even a cruise ship in the range, prior to lifting off on Monday. The CSG-2, or COSMO-SkyMed…
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Cargo Dragon returns to Earth, bringing CRS-24 mission to a close
After a month-long stay at the International Space Station, NASA and SpaceX have successfully returned the CRS-24 Cargo Dragon back to Earth. Ground controllers commanded the undocking of the Dragon spacecraft from the Harmony module’s zenith – or space-facing – port at 10:35 AM EST (15:35 UTC) on Sunday, January 23. Once the spacecraft undocked…
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SpaceX stays busy with Starlink Group 4-6 launch
At 9:02 PM EST on January 18 (02:02 UTC on January 19), SpaceX launched another batch of 49 Starlink satellites to orbit aboard a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC). This launch time was an approximately 2-hour delay from the original target of 7:04 PM EST (00:02…
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SpaceX launches Transporter-3 rideshare mission and lands booster at LZ-1
SpaceX has conducted its second orbital launch of the year, named Transporter-3. The liftoff occurred at the opening of a 29-minute launch window at 10:25 AM EST (15:25 UTC) on Thursday, January 13, from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This is the third dedicated rideshare mission operated…
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SpaceX to leverage Starship for second generation Starlink constellation
SpaceX has provided some interesting context into its plans to launch vast numbers of next-generation “Gen2” Starlink satellites on its Starship launch system, in response to questions from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The Commission filed a series of questions to SpaceX last month, which the company has now addressed. In May 2020, SpaceX requested…
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SpaceX conducts first orbital launch of 2022 with Starlink Group 4-5
SpaceX launched another batch of Starlink satellites to the fourth shell of the constellation for the first global orbital launch attempt of the year. Lifting off from historic Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), the Starlink Group 4-5 mission lifted 49 Starlink v1.5 satellites southeastward from Kennedy into a 210 x 339 km low Earth orbit with…
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Psyche to begin environmental testing ahead of August 2022 launch
As 2022 begins, the ASU (Arizona State University)-led team for the NASA Psyche spacecraft is preparing to conduct thermal vacuum testing in preparation for launch. Psyche is a first-of-a-kind mission set to orbit an M-Type asteroid, scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy booster this August. Following a three-and-a-half-year transit through the inner solar…
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Year in Space: Jeff Bezos and his billionaire rivals finally usher in the age of commercial spaceflight
Jeff Bezos uncorks the bubbly after riding Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital spaceship. (Blue Origin Photo) For 25 years, I’ve been recapping the top stories about space and looking forward to next year’s trends on the final frontier — and for most of that time, the dawn of the era of commercial spaceflight has been…
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SpaceX continues to break reuse records and reach new milestones in 2021
Having launched 31 orbital Falcon 9 missions and four suborbital Starship tests, 2021 was the most active year for SpaceX to date. These launches included a number of new reuse records, including flying a booster for the eleventh time, flying the same booster twice in under a month, flying a fairing half for the fifth…
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NASA, SpaceX launch CRS-24 to the International Space Station
NASA and SpaceX launched the Commercial Resupply Services 24 (CRS-24) mission to the International Space Station (ISS) early Tuesday morning aboard a SpaceX Cargo Dragon 2 vehicle. Liftoff occurred at 5:07 AM EST (10:07 UTC) on Tuesday, December 21, from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Following launch and separation,…