Tag: H-IIA
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Japan’s GOSAT-GW launches aboard final H-IIA rocket
The final flight of Japan’s H-IIA rocket took place on Saturday, carrying the GOSAT-GW environmental research satellite to orbit and ending a career that has spanned 24 years and 50 missions. Liftoff from the Tanegashima Space Center occurred on time at 16:33:03 UTC (1:33 AM local time on Sunday), the opening of a 19-minute window.…
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Launch Roundup: Launch manifest remains busy as 2025’s halfway point approaches
With summer and winter for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres now in full swing, the halfway point of 2025 is fast approaching, and the worldwide launch manifest continues to be as busy as ever. SpaceX has launched four Falcon 9 missions this week, with a private crewed mission to the International Space Station and three…
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Launch Roundup: Missions launched from the U.S., China, and Russia
On the heels of a busy launch week, this week saw a number of launches – and attempts – from around the globe. SpaceX was expected to launch five Falcon 9 missions, including a rideshare and the delayed Axiom-4 crewed mission. However, Axiom-4 was pushed back from June 22 for additional analysis and is now…
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Rocket Report: Rocket Lab’s news blitz; Starship mishap blamed on vibrations
Welcome to Edition 7.33 of the Rocket Report! Phew, what a week for Rocket Lab! The company released a bevy of announcements in conjunction with its quarterly earnings report Thursday. Rocket Lab is spending a lot of money to develop the medium-lift Neutron rocket, and as we’ll discuss below, a rocket landing platform and a new…
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Launch Roundup: NASA Crew-9 flies half-empty, Starlink and Chinese launches continue
NASA and SpaceX’s launch of the Crew-9 mission took center stage this week. The launch of two new International Space Station crew members took place on Saturday from the recently crew-certified Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS). Meanwhile, in California, another Falcon 9 lifted the only scheduled Starlink…
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Launch Roundup: Polaris Dawn, ISS crewed launch headline busy week
This week’s manifest features four Falcon 9 launches, including the highly anticipated Polaris Dawn crewed mission, a mission carrying AST SpaceMobile’s first five cellphone-compatible broadband satellites, and the delayed launch of two more satellites for Europe’s mid-Earth orbit Galileo constellation. Additionally, Roscosmos has launched the Soyuz MS-26 crewed mission to the International Space Station (ISS).…
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There are 2,000-plus dead rockets in orbit—here’s a rare view of one
There are more than 2,000 mostly intact dead rockets circling the Earth, but until this year, no one ever launched a satellite to go see what one looked like after many years of tumbling around the planet. In February, a Japanese company named Astroscale sent a small satellite into low-Earth orbit on top of a…
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There are 2,000-plus dead rockets in orbit—here’s a rare view of one
There are more than 2,000 mostly intact dead rockets circling the Earth, but until this year, no one ever launched a satellite to go see what one looked like after many years of tumbling around the planet. In February, a Japanese company named Astroscale sent a small satellite into low-Earth orbit on top of a…
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Launch Roundup: North Korea has failed launch attempt, SpaceX launch back-to-back missions
Following several launch delays last week, the week of Aug. 21 through Aug. 27 is set to see seven launches marking the 129th through 135th orbital launch attempts of 2023. Starting the week off, SpaceX launched the Starlink Group 7-1 mission from Space Launch Complex (SLC) 4 East at the Vandenberg Space Force Base (VSFB).…
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Japan begins busy year with classified IGS-Radar 7 launch
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Mitsubishi Industries have conducted the nation’s first orbital flight of 2023. The mission saw an H-IIA rocket carry the classified IGS-7 radar reconnaissance satellite into a Sun-synchronous orbit. Liftoff occurred on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023, at 01:49:20 UTC from Launch Area Y1 at the Tanegashima Space Center in…