SpaceX's launch of its next 60 Starlink satellites proceeded smoothly on Wednesday morning. About 1 hour after launch, the stack of satellites deployed into low-Earth orbit. The Falcon 9 rocket's thrice-used first stage landed on the drone ship.
On Thursday, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida bound for the International Space Station. It marked SpaceX’s 19th trip to the space station and the company's final trip to the station for the decade.
SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy launch vehicle is a fully, rapidly reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and anywhere else in the solar system.
A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket blasted off on Tuesday, putting 24 experimental satellites into orbit. The two side booster rockets returned safely to Earth, but the rocket’s center booster missed its mark, crashing in the Atlantic Ocean.
The European Space Agency is developing its own reusable spacecraft. Space Rider will be an un-crewed vehicle with high-tech capabilities that will provide access to space for scientific and commercial enterprises.
UK startup Orbex has showed off its Prime Rocket's second stage. Inside the engineering prototype's shell is the "world's largest" 3D printed rocket engine, which is also designed to run on bio-propane, a renewable fuel source.
New Glenn is a two-stage orbital launch vehicle with an optional third stage and a reusable first stage. Launches of the New Glenn are planned to be made from Spaceport Florida Launch Complex 36 in 2020.
With Thursday's launch, SpaceX has now flown 18 mission this year, tying its record set in 2017. The company could fly as many as four more rockets this year.
The Japanese startup PD Aerospace is developing a reusable space plane that will use a combination of jet engines and a rocket motor to take customers to space by as early as 2023.
SpaceX successfully launched its first "block 5" Falcon 9 rocket, carrying a satellite for Bangladesh. Then the rocket's first stage made a safe landing on an offshore droneship -- the 25th such recovery for SpaceX so far.
It was the fifth set of 10 satellites that SpaceX has launched for Iridium, whose $3 billion projects is expected to include a total of 81 satellites – with 75 launched by SpaceX.
China plans to create new classes of heavy rockets in future, these include the Long March 9 rocket, a three-stage, super-heavy rocket that would allow for crewed missions to the Moon.
According to a recent interview Musk made at the 2018 SXSW conference, the Big Falcon Rocket will be ready to conduct test launches in the next two years.
In 2011, Stratolaunch Systems was founded with a simple goal: to reduce the costs of rocket launches by creating the world’s largest air-launch-to-orbit system. Recently, their aircraft reached a major milestone.
SpaceX launches Falcon Heavy; Elon Musk's Tesla is enroute Mars' orbit.
