Tag: Launch
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ULA’s Delta 4-Heavy ready for another launch attempt after pad repairs
File photo of the swing arms at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 37B launch pad. Credit: United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance is set to try again to launch a Delta 4-Heavy rocket and a classified U.S. government spy satellite Thursday after delays of more than three months caused by persistent issues with the mission’s launch pad.…
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Photos: SpaceX’s stainless-steel Starship SN8 test vehicle
SpaceX’s latest Starship prototype, on its launch pad in South Texas, is ready for the rocket’s most daring test flight yet. The 160-foot-tall (50-meter) rocket prototype is ready to launch to an altitude of around 41,000 feet (12.5 kilometers) over SpaceX’s Starship development facility at Boca Chica, Texas, near Brownsville. This Starship test vehicle, designated…
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Gleaming prototype of SpaceX’s Starship ready for experimental flight
Credit: Isis Valencia / Spaceflight Now SpaceX is gearing up for the next big leap in the development of the next-generation Starship heavy-lift launch vehicle with a test flight to more than 40,000 feet over the Texas Gulf Coast as soon as Tuesday. The 164-foot-tall (50-meter) Starship prototype, made of stainless steel, is sitting on…
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China launches Earth-observation satellite for stereo mapping
A Long March 3B rocket lifts off from the Xichang launch base at 11:58 a.m. Beijing time Sunday with the Gaofen 14 satellite. Credit: Xinhua China launched an optical stereo mapping satellite Sunday, using an upgraded version of the country’s Long March 3B rocket with an extended payload shroud to deliver the Earth-imaging spacecraft into…
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SLS cryogenic tanking test preps begin this weekend
The core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System inside the B-2 test stand at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Credit: NASA Final preparations began this weekend at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi to load super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen into the massive core stage of the Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket for…
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Soyuz rocket lifts off from Plesetsk with Russian relay satellites
Three Russian Gonets communications satellites launched late Wednesday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, riding a Soyuz rocket and Fregat upper stage into orbit on the second successful Soyuz mission in less than 24 hours. The Gonets-M satellites lifted off at 8:14 p.m. EST Wednesday (0114 GMT; 4:14 a.m. Moscow time Thursday) from Plesetsk, a military…
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Japanese data relay satellite launches on H-2A rocket
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 5 a.m. EST (1000 GMT) after confirmation of a successful launch. A Japanese H-2A rocket lifts off from the Tanegashima Space Center on Sunday. Credit: MHI A Japanese satellite designed to relay data and imagery from civilian and military Earth observation spacecraft launched Sunday aboard an H-2A rocket. The dual-use communications satellite…
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SpaceX launches 60 more Starlink satellites on 100th Falcon 9 flight
A Falcon 9 rocket climbs away from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Tuesday night. Credit: SpaceX The 100th flight of a Falcon 9 rocket delivered 60 satellites to orbit for SpaceX’s Starlink network Tuesday night, adding another building block to a planned fleet of thousands of solar-powered space-based relay stations to…
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Live coverage: Chinese sample return spacecraft completes docking in lunar orbit
Live coverage of the Chinese Chang’e 5 lunar sample return mission launching on a Long March 5 rocket. Text updates will appear automatically below. Follow us on Twitter. [tabby title=”CGTN launch webcast”] [tabbyending]
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China launches ambitious mission to return lunar material to Earth
A Long March 5 rocket lifts off from the Wenchang launch center Monday. Credit: CNSA/CLEP A heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket hurled a 9-ton Chinese spacecraft toward the moon Monday on a 23-day mission attempting to return lunar samples to Earth for the first time in 44 years. The nearly 20-story rocket fired off its…