Tag: SpaceX
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How America fell behind China in the lunar space race—and how it can catch back up
For the last month, NASA’s interim administrator, Sean Duffy, has been giving interviews and speeches around the world, offering a singular message: “We are going to beat the Chinese to the Moon.” This is certainly what the president who appointed Duffy to the NASA post wants to hear. Unfortunately, there is a very good chance…
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SpaceX intensifies testing to ready Pad 2 at Starbase
SpaceX is ramping up testing of its second launch pad at Starbase, conducting multiple checkouts of the water deluge system designed to mitigate the intense heat and acoustics of Starship launches. The flurry of activity highlights the company’s push toward operational readiness for Pad 2, including enhancements to water management and structural protections. The pad…
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Launch Roundup: Falcon 9 launches Starlink and Kuiper satellites
SpaceX is scheduled to launch up to three times this week, with each mission planned to deploy internet communications satellites into low-Earth orbit: two for the company’s own Starlink megaconstellation and one for its competitor, Amazon’s Project Kuiper. China kicked off the week’s launch manifest, for those in UTC, with the launch of its 100th…
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Preparation for East Coast Starship debut in 2026 continue to make progress
As SpaceX prepares for Starship’s Flight 11 in October from Texas, significant progress is being made in Florida at the Roberts Road facility, Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), and Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37). SpaceX is rapidly expanding its Starship program, with teams working in parallel to conduct test flights and set the stage for Starship’s…
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Preparation for East Coast Starship debut in 2026 continue to make progress
As SpaceX prepares for Starship’s Flight 11 in October from Texas, significant progress is being made in Florida at the Roberts Road facility, Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), and Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37). SpaceX is rapidly expanding its Starship program, with teams working in parallel to conduct test flights and set the stage for Starship’s…
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The space race is tightening up for Blue Origin and SpaceX, and for America and China
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos have both celebrated space victories, but they’ve also faced setbacks. (Musk at left: GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota, 2020. Bezos at right: Blue Origin Photo, 2021) Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has only just begun to launch a heavy-lift rocket that was a decade in the making — its orbital-class New Glenn launch vehicle, which…
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SpaceX, Blue Origin, Stoke, and others make major progress on Cape launch facilities
The two spaceport launch facilities in the Cape Canaveral area — NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and the U.S. Space Force’s Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) — are on the verge of even bigger changes than have been seen in the last few years. In a recent flyover of the Cape, NSF obtained new…
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SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral
File: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stands at Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Image: Adam Bernstein/Spaceflight Now Update Sept. 25, 4 a.m. EDT (0800 UTC): SpaceX landed its booster on the droneship. SpaceX was back at the launch pad Thursday morning, launching its 86th Starlink mission of the year…
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SpaceX launches NASA, NOAA missions exploring the impacts of the Sun
The Falcon 9 carrying NASA’s IMAP mission transits the disk of the Sun seconds after lifting off from Kennedy Space Center. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now. Update: Launch occurred at 7:30 a.m. EDT (1130 UTC). With successful payload deployments complete about 1.5 hours after liftoff. A trio of Sun-studying, marquee missions for both NASA and the…
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U.S. Launches Three Spacecraft Aboard Falcon 9 to Boost Space Weather Monitoring
The United States launched three spacecraft on Wednesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to improve monitoring of solar activity and its effects on technology, astronauts, and infrastructure on Earth. The launch from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center sent the probes on a journey toward the Lagrange 1 point, around 1.5 million kilometers from the sun,…