Category: rocket
SpaceX’s reused rockets will carry national security payloads for the first time
SpaceX has been reusing rockets for years, but they’ve been off-limits for some crucial launches. They’ll get more use soon, however. The private spaceflight company has signed a contract with the US Space Force to reuse a Falcon 9 booster rocket for… Source
Read More
SpaceX scales back plans for Starship’s first high-altitude flight
You might want to dial back your expectations for the first high-altitude SpaceX Starship flight. Elon Musk now says the flight with the SN8 prototype will top out at 15km, or close to 50,000ft, instead of the 18km and 60,000ft he’d mentioned earlier… Source
Read More
SpaceX’s next Starship prototype will try a 60,000-foot return flight
SpaceX is nearly done with short-hop Starship test flights. Elon Musk has shared (via TechCrunch) that the company’s SN8 Starship prototype should be finished in “about a week,” and will conduct Starship’s first high-altitude flight. After static fir… Source
Read More
Space startup Astra’s first orbital rocket launch ends prematurely
The relatively small private rocket industry just got a little larger, if not quite in the way its new entrant hoped. The American startup Astra conducted a brief first orbital launch attempt (via TechCrunch) late on September 11th, with a successful… Source
Read More
Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket makes a successful return to flight
Rocket Lab has made a successful return to flight following a failure last month. The company’s Electron rocket launched a 100 kg (220 pound) Earth observation satellite from its facility on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand at 11:05 PM EDT on Augus… Source
Read More
Watch ULA abort a rocket launch at the last moment
Most rocket launch aborts are largely uneventful, but United Launch Alliance’s latest was… dramatic. The spaceflight outfit had to abort its NROL-44 mission (via Parabolic Arc) just three seconds before it was due to start, with the Delta IV rocket… Source
Read More