Tag: SpaceX
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Starship Flight 8 vehicles prepare to join forces at Pad A
SpaceX has completed the engine test campaigns for both Ship 34 and Booster 15, which are slated to fly on Starship Flight 8. However, the Mishap Investigation for Flight 7 is still open and needs to be closed before Flight 8 can be approved to launch. Despite this requirement, SpaceX appears confident of approval by…
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Rocket Report: SpaceX lands in the Bahamas; ULA tests modified booster
Welcome to Edition 7.32 of the Rocket Report! It’s true that the US space program has always been political. Domestic and global politics have driven nearly all of the US government’s decisions on major space issues, most notably President John F. Kennedy’s challenge to land astronauts on the Moon amid intense Cold War competition with…
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Launch Roundup: Falcon 9 achieves Bahamas booster landing; Electron flies 60th mission
Three Falcon 9 Starlink missions and a Rocket Lab Electron launch from New Zealand made up the launch manifest for this week. The first Starlink flight of the week saw a Falcon booster land within Bahamian waters for the first time, while Electron’s launch marked the 60th flight of the rocket since its first flight…
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SpaceX sticks first Falcon 9 booster landing in The Bahamas
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket takes off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to begin the Starlink 10-12 mission on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025. A little more than eight minutes after liftoff, the first stage booster, B1080, performed the first booster landing in The Bahamas. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now…
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Starship program at Cape Canaveral kicking into gear
After building a Launch Tower at LC-39A in 2022, building what was to be the Roberts Road Starfactory, and then putting all of the plans on hold, SpaceX has since started ramping up the Starship Program at Cape Canaveral. With the redesign of the Starship Pad at LC-39A and a much larger production facility at…
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NASA announces new launch date for Crew-10, swap of SpaceX Dragon spacecraft following construction delays
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-10 members stand in front of a Falcon 9 first-stage booster at SpaceX’s HangarX facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. From left are Mission Specialist Takuya Onishi of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency),Pilot Nichole Ayers of NASA, Commander Anne McClain of NASA and Mission Specialist Kirill Peskov of Roscosmos. Image: SpaceX…
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Vast space station qualification article passes major milestone
Vast is one step closer to launching its first private commercial space station. The company recently completed testing of its Haven-1 qualification article in Mojave, California, and reported that it successfully passed its tests. The company’s current goal is to launch the flight article aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than May 2026.…
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Launch Roundup: Starlink and CZ-8A launches planned; Falcon booster to land in Bahamas
China conducted the debut flight of an upgraded version of the Chang Zheng 8 medium-lift rocket this week. Three Starlink launches from Florida were planned, with just the Feb. 18 flight remaining to be done, and a NROL flight from Vandenberg aboard a Falcon 9 is now set for Feb. 17. All three Starlink flights…
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SpaceX launches 23 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from California
A streak shot of the Falcon 9 rocket as it flys away from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base on Feb. 10, 2025. Image: SpaceX SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket its latest batch of Starlink V2 Mini satellites from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Monday evening. The company stood…
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Rocket Report: Another hiccup with SpaceX upper stage; Japan’s H3 starts strong
Welcome to Edition 7.30 of the Rocket Report! The US government relies on SpaceX for a lot of missions. These include launching national security satellites, putting astronauts on the Moon, and global broadband communications. But there are hurdles—technical and, increasingly, political—on the road ahead. To put it generously, Elon Musk, without whom much of what…