Free Republic

All of the astronauts — representing the U.S., Russia, Japan and France — managed to squeeze into camera view for a congratulatory call from the leaders of their space agencies.

SpaceX launched its third crew to the International Space Station an hour before sunrise Friday, recycling a rocket and spacecraft for the first time. The Crew-2 mission, the first involving a European, blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 09:49 UTC (5:49 am Eastern Time). "Endeavour launches once again - four astronauts from three countries on Crew-2, now making their way to the one and only International Space Station," announcer Gary Jordan said to loud cheers and applause. Liftoff of Falcon 9 and Dragon! pic.twitter.com/g6Oi8qwU2Y — SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 23, 2021 The Crew Dragon entered orbit a...

SpaceX launched its third crew to the International Space Station an hour before sunrise on Friday in Florida, recycling a rocket and spacecraft for the first time. The Crew-2 mission, the first involving a European, blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 5.49am Eastern Time (7.49pm AEST). “Endeavour launches once again — four astronauts from three countries on Crew-2, now making their way to the one and only International Space Station,” announcer Gary Jordan said to loud cheers and applause. The Crew Dragon entered orbit a few minutes later and is racing to catch up with the...

Watch live starting at 1:30 a.m. EDT (5:30 UTC), Fri., April 23, as four astronauts launch from Earth to their new home in space, the International Space Station. At 5:49 a.m. EDT (9:49 UTC), the SpaceX Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket will lift off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur of NASA, Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency, and Akihiko Hoshide of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will join the station's crew, for a mission of approximately six months. This will be the first launch through our Commercial Crew Program...

ORLANDO, Fla., April 16 (UPI) -- Elon Musk's SpaceX has won a $2.9 billion contract to develop the company's Starship rocket as a lunar lander to carry astronauts on Artemis moon missions, NASA announced Friday. In selecting only SpaceX for the lunar program, NASA ended consideration of Musk's rival, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin space company, and a third proposal by Huntsville, Ala.-based Dynetics.

In the next few months, SpaceX could have more than 1,600 of its Starlink satellites in low-Earth orbit, and that may be enough for the nascent broadband service to reach just about anywhere in the world. "After about 28 launches, we'll have continuous coverage throughout the globe," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said Tuesday during an online panel discussion for the Satellite 2021 LEO Digital Forum. The 23rd operational Starlink launch is set for Wednesday. That means we're about a half dozen launches away from the point Shotwell describes. SpaceX has already successfully conducted seven dedicated Starlink launches in 2021 so...

To make the roughly six-month one-way journey, Musk and his engineers have dreamed up a 347-foot-tall launch system called the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR. The spacecraft is designed to have two fully reusable stages: a 19-story booster and a 16-story spaceship, which would fly on top of the booster and into into space. SpaceX employees are now building a prototype of the Big Falcon Spaceship at the Port of Los Angeles. Gwynne Shotwell, the company's president and COO, reportedly said Thursday that the spaceship may start small test-launches in late 2019. Several official graphics of the spaceship's internal structure...

SpaceX has been given initial approval...to acquire and develop a massive vacant lot into a facility capable of manufacturing the first BFR prototypes and refurbishing the company’s reusable Falcon 9 boosters.... A request summary completed on March 6 details SpaceX’s proposal, laying out a bright future of rocket manufacturing for the abandoned 18-acre lot at Berth 240, one that might soon support “composite curing, cleaning, painting, and assembly [of commercial transportation vessels]” that “would need to be transported by water due to their size.” This description meshes almost perfectly with past discussion of BFR manufacturing plans from SpaceX executives like...

SpaceX, now on track to more than double its personal best for launches conducted in a single year, wants to further accelerate its launch pace in 2018 by perhaps 10 or more missions. “We will increase our cadence next year about 50 percent,” Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and COO, told SpaceNews in an interview last week. “We’ll fly more next year than this year, knock on wood, and I think we will probably level out at about that rate, 30 to 40 per year.” With 16 launches completed and three to four remaining by year’s end, SpaceX is tracking to...