Tag: China
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Rocket Report: A good week for Blue Origin; Italy wants its own launch capability
Welcome to Edition 7.21 of the Rocket Report! We’re publishing the Rocket Report a little early this week due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. We don’t expect any Thanksgiving rocket launches this year, but still, there’s a lot to cover from the last six days. It seems like we’ve seen the last…
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Launch Roundup: Falcon 9 launches continue, Rocket Lab to launch two Electrons, Russia to fly to ISS
Following the sixth flight of SpaceX’s Starship on Tuesday, eight additional orbital launches were planned worldwide. Rocket Lab launched an experimental hypersonic testbed payload using a modified Electron from Wallops. What’s more, a second Electron launched a batch of nanosatellites into low-Earth orbit from New Zealand less than 24 hours later. Meanwhile, SpaceX continued to…
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Launch Roundup: Falcon 9 launches customer payloads, China fly resupply mission to Tiangong
While SpaceX flew Starship on its sixth integrated test flight, the company also flew three satellites to geostationary transfer orbit this week. Koreasat 6A, Optus-X, and GSAT-20 were launched. Meanwhile, four Starlink missions also flew this week. Finally, Starship Flight 6 was moved to Tuesday, Nov. 19 and was launched successfully on that day. Starlink…
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Rocket Report: Australia says yes to the launch; Russia delivers for Iran
Welcome to Edition 7.19 of the Rocket Report! Okay, we get it. We received more submissions from our readers on Australia’s approval of a launch permit for Gilmour Space than we’ve received on any other news story in recent memory. Thank you for your submissions as global rocket activity continues apace. We’ll cover Gilmour in…
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Rocket Report: Australia says yes to the launch; Russia delivers for Iran
Welcome to Edition 7.19 of the Rocket Report! Okay, we get it. We received more submissions from our readers on Australia’s approval of a launch permit for Gilmour Space than we’ve received on any other news story in recent memory. Thank you for your submissions as global rocket activity continues apace. We’ll cover Gilmour in…
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China reveals a new heavy lift rocket that is a clone of SpaceX’s Starship
When Chinese space officials unveiled the design for the country’s first super heavy lift rocket nearly a decade ago, it looked like a fairly conventional booster. The rocket was fully expendable, with three stages and solid motors strapped onto its sides. Since then, the Asian country has been revising the design of this rocket, named…
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US Space Force warns of “mind-boggling” build-up of Chinese capabilities
The chief of the US Space Force has warned that China is putting military capabilities into space at a “mind-boggling” pace, significantly increasing the risk of warfare in orbit. “The number of different categories of space weapons that [China has] created and … the speed with which they’re doing it is very threatening,” said General Chance Saltzman,…
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China taikonaut trio arrives at the Tiangong space station
The taikonauts of the Shenzhou-19 mission meet their counterparts from Shenzhou-18 onboard the Tiangong space station several hours after lifting off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China. Image: CNSA via CCTV livestream Three of China’s taikonauts completed their journey to the Tiangong space station to begin the country’s eighth long-duration spaceflight. Commander Cai…
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Rocket Report: Sneak peek at the business end of New Glenn; France to fly FROG
Welcome to Edition 7.17 of the Rocket Report! Next week marks 10 years since one of the more spectacular launch failures of this century. On October 28, 2014, an Antares rocket, then operated by Orbital Sciences, suffered an engine failure six seconds after liftoff from Virginia and crashed back onto the pad in a fiery…
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Launch Roundup: SpaceX launches 400th orbital flight; Blue Origin, China launch missions
Blue Origin tested its second human-rated New Shepard capsule this week, which had been delayed twice since the start of the month. The week has also seen two launches from China while a fourth flight of the Japanese H3 rocket carrying a communications satellite for the Japanese military has now been delayed until next week.…