SpaceX Falcon

The $5.2 billion mission is intended to continue its prime mission into June 2034, is to reach and enter orbit around Jupiter in April 2030.

Our roundup of the main aerospace and defense stories making the news this week.

The European Space Agency plans to land two cubesats on a remote asteroid as it seeks to gather more data to inform its planetary defense mission.

The new mission, known as Hera, is a followup to NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART).

The once-classified office, first publicly acknowledged in 1992, is close to operationalizing its new constellation.

ESA is still optimistic its Hera mission to survey the Dimorphos asteroid will launch Oct. 7 despite a technical glitch with a SpaceX Falcon 9 during a recent flight.

NASA’s Crew-9 Dragon Freedom capsule autonomously docked with the station, delivering a NASA astronaut and Russian cosmonaut for a five-month tour of duty.

SpaceX is suspending Falcon rocket launches planned for early October while investigating an anomaly that occurred during launch of the Crew-9 mission Sept. 28.

A NASA astronaut and a Russian cosmonaut began a 28-hr. trip to the International Space Station. In six months they will bring the Starliner CST-100 crew home.

NASA’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov are slated to lift off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 1:17 p.m. EDT.

Financier and Mission Commander Jared Isaacman is eyeing a more ambitious spacewalk for his next flight.

The launch is slated to take place on a SpaceX Falcon 9X in October 2025, BAE Systems’ Director of Space Doug Liddle says.

The AST BlueBird 1-5 mission lifted off at 4:52 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral SFS Space Launch Complex 40.

Surpassing the 853-mi.-high Gemini 11 apogee record was a personal goal of Polaris Dawn commander and financier Jared Isaacman.

Liftoff aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket is targeted between Oct. 10-30 from Kennedy Space Center.

The NRO says it plans to launch about a half a dozen missions in support of the next-generation proliferated architecture in 2024.

SpaceX resumed operations of its Falcon 9 launcher, ending a brief pause after a first-stage booster landing mishap on a prior Starlink mission.

The rocket lifted off at 3:48 a.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral SFS to deliver 21 Starlink satellites into orbit.

SpaceX suffered a mishap with a Falcon 9 first-stage booster during an attempt to land it on a ship following its use during a Starlink launch mission.

SpaceX has reset the launch of the privately funded Polaris Dawn mission for Aug. 28 to troubleshoot a helium leak in a quick-disconnect umbilical on the ground side of the Falcon 9 launch system.

The company plans to launch the first of its forestry monitoring spacecraft in 2025 after supplier issues delayed the mission from this year.

The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 11:56 a.m. Pacific time from Space Launch Complex 4E.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the first U.S. military payloads to be hosted onboard allied commercial satellites launched on Aug. 11.

Ispace distributed an image of a Komatsu tracked excavator on the lunar surface as part of its Aug. 8 announcement.

Data from 363 prior missions was key for the speedy return to flight.