Tag: Launch
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Two more satellites launched into China’s Beidou navigation fleet
A Long March 3B rocket lifted off at 2110 GMT Sunday (5:10 p.m. EDT), or 5:10 a.m. Beijing time Monday, with two more Beidou navigation satellites. Credit: Xinhua China added two more satellites to the country’s Beidou navigation fleet — an analog to the U.S. military’s GPS network — with a successful Long March 3B…
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Five Chinese smallsats launched by Long March 11 rocket
A solid-fueled Long March 11 rocket lifts off from the Jiuquan launch base Thursday at 0642 GMT (2:42 a.m. EDT; 2:42 p.m. Beijing time). Credit: Xinhua Five commercial Earth-imaging satellites rode a Long March 11 rocket into orbit Thursday from the Jiuquan space base in northwestern China. The five satellites will join the Zhuhai 1…
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Starlink to fill lion’s share of SpaceX near-term launch manifest
Artist’s concept of a Starlink satellite with its solar array wing unfurled. Credit: SpaceX SpaceX plans as many as 24 launches next year to build out the company’s Starlink network to provide broadband Internet service from space, following up to four more Starlink missions before the end of this year, according to SpaceX’s chief operating…
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SES selects SpaceX for two Falcon 9 launches
File photo of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral, the expected launch site for the first satellites in the O3b mPower constellation. Credit: SpaceX Two SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches will loft seven high-throughput broadband satellites for SES’s O3b mPower constellation in 2021, SES announced this week. The two launches are expected…
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China launches Earth-observing satellites, solar sail experiment
A Long March 4B rocket lifted off Thursday from the Taiyuan space center in China. Credit: CCTV Two Earth-imaging satellites and an experimental solar sail payload rocketed into orbit Thursday aboard a Chinese Long March 4B launcher, the first flight for China’s Long March 4 rocket family since an upper stage failure in May. The…
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Long-delayed NASA science satellite gets October launch date
Technicians extend the solar array on NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, satellite during a deployment test Aug. 10 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Credit: NASA/Randy Beaudoin The launch of a NASA ionospheric research satellite off Florida’s east coast is targeted for Oct. 9 after persistent technical problems with its air-dropped Pegasus rocket stymied…
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Russian military satellite orbited by Rockot launcher
A geodetic surveying satellite for the Russian military successfully launched Friday aboard a Rockot booster — a modified ballistic missile — from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome. The 95-foot-tall (29-meter) Rockot launcher lifted off at 1400 GMT (10 a.m. EDT; 5 p.m. Moscow time) Friday from Plesetsk, according to a statement released by Roscosmos, the Russian space…
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SpaceX launches Starship “hopper” on dramatic test flight
STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION SpaceX launched its sub-scale Starship “hopper” spacecraft on a brief unpiloted up-and-down test flight at the company’s Boca Chica, Texas, test facility Tuesday, a dramatic demonstration of rocket technology intended to pave the way to a new, more powerful heavy lift booster and, eventually, crew-carrying interplanetary spacecraft. Running…
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SpaceX aborts Starhopper test flight, could try again Tuesday
Credit: SpaceX SpaceX aborted an attempted flight Monday of the company’s Starhopper test rocket, a prototype for the company’s next-generation Starship vehicle. The hop test was to fly to a height of around 500 feet (150 meters) over SpaceX’s launch site at Boca Chica, Texas. SpaceX said teams could mount another attempt for the Starhopper…
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Russians ready unpiloted Soyuz capsule for launch
An unpiloted Russian Soyuz spacecraft, with a humanoid robot in the commander’s seat instead of a cosmonaut, is scheduled for liftoff late Wednesday (U.S. time) from Kazakhstan on a test flight to verify the spaceship’s compatibility with the new-generation Soyuz-2.1a rocket set to begin launching crews to the International Space Station next year. Flying…