Launches

Blogs about launches of satellites, space probes, manned spacecraft.

Super Heavy Booster 14 and Starship 33 at liftoff (Image courtesy SpaceX)

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It was the afternoon in the USA when SpaceX conducted a new flight test of its Super Heavy rocket and Starship prototypes, launched from its base in Boca Chica, Texas. This is the 7th test involving the entire system of Elon Musk’s company which is supposed to revolutionize space travel with an unprecedented transport capacity and being totally reusable. They are advanced prototypes with the Super Heavy identified as Booster 14 and the Starship Block 2 identified as Starship 33 or Ship33 or simply S33.

The New Glenn rocket blasting off in its NG-1 mission (Image courtesy Blue Origin)

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A little while ago, Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket was launched on its maiden mission, called NG-1. For the occasion, it was carrying a prototype of the Blue Ring, a space platform that has the purpose of carrying payloads to be put into orbit, also under development by Blue Origin. The second stage worked correctly and the Blue Ring separated reaching the planned orbit. The secondary objective was to land the first stage, which didn’t succeed.

ispace's Hakuto-R2 Resilience and Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost Moon landers blasting off atop a Falcon 9 rocket (Image courtesy SpaceX)

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A little while ago, ispace’s Hakuto-R2 Resilience and Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost Moon landers blasted off atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral. After about 1 hour and 5 minutes, Blue Ghost successfully separated from the rocket’s upper stage, and about 27 minutes later, Resilience separated as well. The two landers will travel on very different routes to attempt to land on the Moon a few months apart. This is ispace’s second mission, after the first failed on April 25, 2023.

The SpaDeX satellites blasting off atop a PSLV-CA rocket (Photo courtesy ISRO)

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It was night in India when the two satellites of the SpaDeX (Space Docking Experiment) mission were launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Center atop a PSLV-CA rocket. The two satellites separated from the rocket’s final stage and entered a circular orbit at an altitude of about 475 kilometers. Another 24 experiments were launched on the same mission, but the SpaDeX satellites are the most important because they will serve to test the docking technologies necessary for the progress of the Indian space program.

Sentinel-1C satellite blasting off atop a Vecga-C rocket (Photo courtesy ESA-CNES-ARIANESPACE/Optique vidéo du CSG–S. Martin)

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A few hours ago, the Sentinel-1C satellite, part of the Copernicus / GMES, was launched from the Kourou spaceport, in French Guiana, atop a Vega-C rocket. After about 1 hour and 44 minutes, the satellite regularly separated from the rocket’s last stage and started sending signals. Its final orbit in low Earth orbit will be at an altitude of about 693 kilometers.