Launch

Virgin Orbit has ticked off another milestone in its fledgling launch business, successfully carrying out its first night-time mission over the weekend and deploying satellites into low-Earth orbit for the US Space Force.

NASA took its first step today in establishing its Gateway orbital lunar outpost with the launch of its CAPSTONE CubeSat that will be used to test a new lunar orbit slated for the future space station.

SpinLaunch has released on-board footage from its eighth suborbital flight test, giving us a unique opportunity to imagine what it'd be like to be hurled skyward out of a centrifugal accelerator at more than a thousand miles per hour.

NASA has signed up to test SpinLaunch's extraordinary whirl 'n' hurl space launch technology, which accelerates a launch vehicle to hypersonic speeds using an electric centrifuge arm instead of a rocket, hurling it skyward like a space discus.

Northrop Grumman's SpaceLogistics subsidiary has signed an agreement with SpaceX and Australian telecommunications company Optus to put its Mission Robotic Vehicle (MRV) spacecraft and Mission Extension Pod (MEP) into regular commercial service.

NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) X-ray space telescope has roared into orbit to start its mission studying polarized X-rays from a variety of cosmic sources, including black holes, neutron stars, pulsars, quasars, and galactic nuclei.

After years of setbacks, the James Webb Space Telescope will finally launch next month. NASA has given the green light to begin fueling the observatory for launch, after engineering teams found no sign of damage from an incident last week.

A new player has joined the ranks of private spacefaring outfits with the ability to reach orbit, following the successful lift-off for startup Astra's launch vehicle just five years after the company was established.

Startup SpinLaunch has been exploring alternatives to rockets through the development of what it calls the world's first kinetic space launch system, which literally flings satellites into orbit – and it's recently completed its first test flight.

A first-of-a-kind NASA launch took place over the weekend, setting the agency's Lucy spacecraft on a pioneering path toward Jupiter to study an unprecedented number of asteroids as part of a single mission.

The Inspiration4 mission has lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission differs from any previous crewed mission in that it is the first conducted entirely as a private venture.

NASA has finally set a date for the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). If all goes to plan, the long-awaited flagship mission will blast into orbit on December 18, 2021, from French Guiana onboard an Ariane 5 rocket.