LAUNCH TRIPLEHEADER! SPACEX TO FLY 3 ROCKETS IN 13 HOURS TODAY - SpaceX has a very big day planned. Elon Musk's company is scheduled to launch three missions in a 13-hour span today (Oct. 1), a feat it has accomplished just once before. The action will start at 11:10 a.m. EDT (1510 GMT) with the launch of the Crew-13 astronaut mission for NASA, which will head toward the International Space Station atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.   More
(Source: Space.com - Oct 1)

NASA PLANS UNPILOTED STARLINER TEST FLIGHT AT END OF YEAR - NASA is working with Boeing to launch an unpiloted Starliner capsule in the December-January time frame to test upgrades and improvements ordered in the wake of a 2024 mission that suffered multiple propulsion system failures, stranding two astronauts on the space station for more than nine months. If the unpiloted test flight goes well, NASA and Boeing hope to launch a piloted Starliner flight in mid 2028, officials said Monday, incorporating redesigned propulsion system valves, more robust subsystems and other modifications expected to prevent the sort of failures that occurred in 2024.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 1)

WOW! WATCH SPACEX'S STARSHIP MEGAROCKET DEPLOY SATELLITES INTO ORBIT FOR 1ST TIME EVER - Construction of SpaceX's next-gen Starlink satellite megaconstellation is officially underway. The milestone occurred today (Sept. 28), during the 14th test flight of the company's Starship megarocket. The 407-foot-tall (124 meters) Starship reached orbit for the first time ever on Flight 14 — and it did something productive while it was up there.   More
(Source: Space.com - Sep 30)

SPACEX'S STARSHIP SPLASHES DOWN IN PACIFIC OCEAN AFTER RETURNING TO EARTH EARLIER THAN PLANNED - A thunderous lift off, rapid satellite deployments and a fiery ending. That's how SpaceX's 14th launch of its Starship rocket panned out today. SpaceX - owned by Elon Musk - describes Starship as "the world's most powerful launch vehicle ever developed". SpaceX aims for it to be reusable and eventually take people to the Moon. It's made up of two parts, the booster, and the top section called the Ship. Minutes after today's launch from the base in Texas, the booster landed in the Gulf of Mexico as planned.   More
(Source: BBC News - Sep 29)

MILLIONS OF SATELLITES ORBITING EARTH? ASTRONOMERS HOPE THE UN CAN SLOW THE COMING DATA CENTER DOOM - The International Court of Justice (ICJ) could help stop the uncontrolled proliferation of satellites in Earth orbit, which threatens to erase stars from the sky, astronomers hope. The initiative, spearheaded by the nonprofit Outer Space Institute, aims to lobby the United Nations to request an advisory opinion from the ICJ, the UN's principal judicial body. Through this, scientists want to gain clarity over the legal responsibilities of launching states to preserve near-Earth space from orbital clutter and the dark night sky from excessive light pollution.   More
(Source: Space.com - Sep 29)

SPACEX LAUNCHES STARSHIP INTO ORBIT FOR 1ST TIME — LARGEST ROCKET EVER BUILT NOTCHES KEY MILESTONE ON DRAMATIC FLIGHT 14 TEST - Starship has just gone where it has never gone before. SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy megarocket — the biggest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built — reached orbit today (Sept. 28), notching a huge milestone on the road to operational flight. And the launch, from SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas, was not without high drama. During liftoff, one of the six engines on the Starship upper stage went out, raising doubt on whether SpaceX would attempt to reach orbit after all. SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot even announced it was called off, only to reverse course as flight controllers decided to press ahead.   More
(Source: Space.com - Sep 28)

NEXT CREW BOUND FOR THE SPACE STATION ARRIVE IN FLORIDA - The next quartet heading to the International Space Station arrived at the Kennedy Space Center on Saturday afternoon. They are scheduled to launch no earlier than 11:10 a.m. EDT (1510 UTC) on Thursday, Oct. 1. Canadian Space Agency (CSA) astronaut Joshua Kutryk and NASA astronaut Luke Delany piloted a pair of T-38 jets from NASA’s Johnson Space Center and landed at the Launch and Landing Facility under a largely cloud-less sky and with a light breeze.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 28)

NASA ANNOUNCES NEW SPACE TELESCOPE ‘PRIMA’ TO LAUNCH IN 2033 - On the heels of launching its Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, NASA announced a new observatory, the Probe far-Infrared Mission for Astrophysics or PRIMA. The agency said Wednesday PRIMA was moving into what’s referred to as Phase B development. That allows for further development of the preliminary design and for NASA to conduct technical and budget reviews. If approved, PRIMA will move forward into Phase C with a max project cost of $1.2 billion, not including launch and other costs.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 27)

'OWLRIGHT, OWLRIGHT, OWLRIGHT': ROCKET LAB LAUNCHES PRIVATE JAPANESE RADAR SATELLITE TO ORBIT - Rocket Lab launched another Earth-imaging radar satellite to orbit for the Japanese company Synspective on Friday night (Sept. 25). The mission, called “Owlright, Owlright, Owlright,” lifted off aboard an Electron rocket from Pad B at Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand on Friday at 8:39 p.m. EDT (0039 GMT on Sept. 26). Everything went well: The satellite was deployed into low Earth orbit (LEO) as planned, Rocket Lab announced via X.   More
(Source: Space.com - Sep 27)

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