Japanese startup Space One lost another rocket today (Dec. 18) when its Kairos 2 launch vehicle failed shortly after liftoff. Space One was aiming to be the first private Japanese company to put a satellite into orbit with the Kairos 2 rocket, but it was not to be. After taking off around 11 a.m...

China has started building its second enormous satellite-internet constellation in low Earth orbit (LEO). A Long March 5B rocket lifted off from Wenchang Space Launch Center on the island of Hainan Monday (Dec. 16) at 5:00 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT; 6 p.m. local time), carrying 10 broadband spacecraft...

Chinese astronauts living aboard the Tiangong Space Station created a world record on December 17. Two of the Shezhou 19 crew members conducted a marathon nine-hour Extravehicular Activity (EVA) or spacewalk, highest ever in spaceflight history while working outside the station. The EVA was...

NASA has again postponed the return to Earth of Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, the astronauts stranded on the International Space Station after Boeing’s Starliner capsule malfunctioned in the middle of this year. The crew of the spacecraft arrived at the ISS in June. The objective was to...

SpaceX launched two communication satellites from Florida’s Space Coast today (Dec. 17) on the second leg of a spaceflight doubleheader. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center today at 5:26 p.m. EDT (2226 GMT), carrying the O3b mPOWER 7 and 8 satellites toward...

SpaceX test-fired the upper stage of its seventh Starship megarocket again recently, this time practicing for an in-space engine burn. The company ignited all six of the Flight 7 Starship spacecraft’s Raptor engines for about 10 seconds on a test stand at its Starbase facility in South Texas...

SpaceX’s 31st robotic cargo mission has made it back to Earth. SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule splashed down off the Florida coast at 1:39 p.m. EDT (1839 GMT) today (Dec. 17), a day after undocking from the International Space Station (ISS). CRS-31 returned to Earth with thousands of...

The European Commission on Monday awarded contracts to push forward delayed plans for a 10.6 billion euro ($11.13 billion) secure European satellite constellation in response to Elon Musk’s Starlink and other fast-growing internet networks. The multi-orbit array of more than 280 satellites...

SpaceX launched the mysterious RRT-1 mission from Florida’s Space Coast today (Dec. 16), after high winds scuttled a previous attempt. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today (Dec. 16) at 7:51 p.m. EDT (0051 on Dec. 17), kicking off a mission that SpaceX...