Space Stuff and Launch Info

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The abort system might do that (with some rounding errors), but the rocket will certainly not. Net acceleration at liftoff is only something like 0.4 g.

Fueling of Artemis II has started, 9 hours and 50 minutes to go. I started a thread.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

From CNN:


https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/31/science/nasa-artemis-ii-what-to-watch-for

Ehh? I don' think so, that's more than 12 g's including the one they already have. I'm not sure where they get that, but it's in the google ai result. Chicken or egg...

That article now contains a more realistic acceleration (around speed of sound after a minute) and the following at the end:

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the initial liftoff speed of the rocket.

 

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Both stages for the next Starship launch have been moved to the launch site for testing. Looks like a spin prime test of the ship - like a static fire test but without igniting the engine.
Things look on track for an early May launch or so.
Edit: Spin prime test of the booster followed quickly afterwards.
Edit2: And static fire of the ship.

The third New Glenn launch is scheduled for April 16. SpaceX has reused boosters hundreds of times. This will be the first time someone else reuses a booster for an orbital rocket.

Tianlong-3 is another rocket designed with a reusable booster. It recently made its first intentional flight, but failed to reach orbit (no recovery attempt yet). It made an accidental flight two years ago.

Rocket	Landing attempts	Landing successes	Reuses
Falcon 9/Heavy	~610	~600	~560
Starship	4	3	2
New Glenn	2	1	coming April 16
Zhuque-3	1	0
Long March 12A	1	0

 

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If you are missing live coverage from a spaceflight mission: Apollo in real time is covering the Apollo missions as they happened 56 years ago. It's currently following Apollo 13 on its moon-bound trajectory. Spoiler:

Spoiler

The accident will happen within the next hour.

 

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33-engine static fire of Super Heavy
Looks great with the new flame trench. That and the earlier Ship static fire means a launch sometime in May looks likely.

 

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New Glenn launch in 2 hours 30 minutes. Livestream
This will be the first time a company besides SpaceX reuses a booster of an orbital rocket.

The payload is BlueBird 7, a direct-to-cell communication satellite by AST SpaceMobile.



Edit:

Spoiler

Booster was successful and landed again, the upper stage is still working.

 

[pinball1970]

New Glenn launch in 2 hours 30 minutes. Livestream
This will be the first time a company besides SpaceX reuses a booster of an orbital rocket.

The payload is BlueBird 7, a direct-to-cell communication satellite by AST SpaceMobile.



Edit:

Spoiler

Booster was successful and landed again, the upper stage is still working.

It looked like Jacklyn was destroyed! Just a yellow blaze and smoke.
Amazing technology to land perfectly (once the smoke cleared)

 

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Booster landing success, but wrong orbit for the launch: "NG-3 Update: We have confirmed payload separation. AST SpaceMobile has confirmed the satellite has powered on. The payload was placed into an off-nominal orbit. We are currently assessing and will update when we have more detailed information."

There are reports that it is in a 460 x 164 km orbit, i.e. the circularization burn didn't happen. It's very unlikely that the spacecraft can recover from such a low perigee, so this effectively means a launch failure. Expect a reentry within days.

 

[Jonathan Scott]

There are reports that it is in a 460 x 164 km orbit, i.e. the circularization burn didn't happen. It's very unlikely that the spacecraft can recover from such a low perigee, so this effectively means a launch failure. Expect a reentry within days.

I'm wondering whether the second stage subsequently managed the third (disposal) burn. If it did, then in hindsight it might have been better to have deferred payload separation to have a second attempt at the second burn (needing either very intelligent automation or very flexible control). If it didn't, then the second stage will be going around again for a while too.

 

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Confirmed loss of the satellite - no orbit data but too low to be saved.

If it didn't, then the second stage will be going around again for a while too.

It's almost certainly in the same orbit where drag will deorbit it very quickly.

 

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New orbit data: 265 x 485 km x 43.0 deg orbit
That means the circularization burn started, but stopped after about 50%. Still too low to be useful for the payload, but it now gives ASTS some more time in orbit to test their satellite.

 

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SpaceX: Test like you fly
A 25 minute video about Starship and a bit about SpaceX in general. A lot of new video material, or at least stuff I haven't seen before. It's listed as first video in a series, so we might get more in the future.

It confirms that the 33-engine static fire of the booster was aborted early. They will probably need another one before they are ready to launch.

A Falcon Heavy will launch ViaSat-3 APAC on April 27, 14:21 UTC. Both boosters will return to the launch site for a landing.
Edit: Delayed due to bad weather.

 

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Second attempt to launch Falcon Heavy in 1 hour, this time the weather is better:

https://www.spacex.com/launches/viasat3f3

 

[Borg]

A Falcon 9 rocket will hit the Moon this summer at seven times the speed of sound
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/04/a-falcon-9-upper-stage-will-strike-the-moon-in-august/

 

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The first launch of Irtysh, or Soyuz-5, is planned for late March. 18 tonnes to orbit put it in the medium-lift category, but its first stages could become boosters for Yenisei (~100-140 tonnes to orbit).

A bit delayed, but now it launched successfully on a suborbital trajectory.

Psyche (the spacecraft) will fly past Mars in 14 days, gaining enough momentum to reach Psyche (the asteroid).

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has been full assembled - earlier than scheduled and under budget. It's scheduled to launch on a Falcon Heavy in September. It's essentially a successor to Hubble, with a much wider field of view and more modern instruments.

 

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Starship flight 12 no earlier than May 12
It's the first flight of v3, so a lot of things are going to be new.
The flight plan is similar to before, go to an almost-orbital trajectory then splash down near Australia. Compared to previous flights this one will go to a somewhat larger inclination, passing south of Cuba instead of north of it.

Edit: Now NET May 15.

 

[Lnewqban]

Second attempt to launch Falcon Heavy in 1 hour, this time the weather is better:

https://www.spacex.com/launches/viasat3f3

I had a chance to see it in real time while I was driving Northbound 30 miles South of Cape Canaveral.
Thank you for posting!

 

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A Starlink satellite watching itself and other nearby satellites shortly after deployment. The group of three satellites ahead look like they are far away, but they are probably within a kilometer while the ground is 300 km below and the horizon is well over 1000 km away.

 

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SpaceX: "Full duration and full thrust 33-engine static fire with Super Heavy V3"
Launch is still no earlier than May 15.



Interior of the booster of Stoke Space's Nova rocket (exterior is here)

 

[Borg]

Pretty eerie looking video from multiple locations in Canada.

Sightings reported across B.C., astronomer says cause was likely SpaceX rocket
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/strange-light-british-columbia-9.7189267

 

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"I thought it was the moon," said Ashley Megan

Really? The Moon just changed its shape and got 100 times faster?

Successful wet dress rehearsal for Starship flight 12
It looks like they have some more work to do so May 15 is probably too optimistic, but the weekend or next week are likely.

 

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Introducing Starship v3
12th flight test

No earlier than May 19, 5:30 pm CT (22:30 UTC). They upgraded to 22 Starlink simulators that will be deployed, two of them will take pictures of Starship from the outside. Besides that it's mostly the same as for the previous two flights, but now with v3 vehicles and engines. The booster will splash down near the coast.

 

[Astronuc]

Psyche (the spacecraft) will fly past Mars in 14 days, gaining enough momentum to reach Psyche (the asteroid).

Still on track. NASA spacecraft to fly past Mars this week, on voyage to rare metal asteroid
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-spacecraft-psyche-mars-flyby-voyage-rare-metal-asteroid/

The asteroid that scientists have described as a "metal world" and "one of the more unusual objects in our solar system" sits in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. NASA's explorer is expected to approach and begin orbiting the ultimate target of its mission at the end of 2029.

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will get a boost from Mars on Friday, May 15, passing just 2,800 miles (4,500 kilometers) from the planet’s surface at some 12,333 mph (19,848 kph). The spacecraft will harness the planet’s gravitational pull to speed up and adjust its trajectory toward the metal-rich asteroid Psyche, one of the more unusual objects in our solar system.

Launched on Oct. 13, 2023, the Psyche spacecraft relies on a solar-electric propulsion system and the inert gas xenon for propellant, gradually gaining speed over the course of its long journey. Psyche’s mission planners are using the Mars flyby to save propellant, letting the planet’s gravity do some of the work instead of the propulsion system alone. But gravity assists like these also offer opportunities for missions to practice and to calibrate their science instruments.

https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/psyc...he-mission-to-fly-by-mars-for-gravity-assist/

https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/psyche/ - blog archive.

https://psyche.ssl.berkeley.edu/

https://news.asu.edu/psyche

Hopefully some good news this weekend.

 

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Curiosity has picked up a rock on Mars. It drilled into the rock to take a sample, but then the drill got stuck - retracting it lifted the whole rock. After some rotation and vibration it eventually fell down and broke into pieces.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/curiosity-shakes-loose-a-pesky-rock/
https://science.nasa.gov/photojournal/nasas-curiosity-rover-frees-its-drill-from-a-rock/

Starship moved a day, now planned to launch no earlier than May 20.

 

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Starship is on track to launch in 11 hours. SpaceX live coverage will start around an hour before launch: https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-12

This will be the first launch attempt of v3, the first with a new launch pad, and there is a significant chance of bad weather, so a delay wouldn't be surprising.

Edit (updated): Stopped at t-40 seconds. They had some issues with the tower that they couldn't solve in time. There will probably be another attempt tomorrow.

 

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Next attempt, same time as yesterday:
Weather looks good (85%).

 

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Liftoff!

Spoiler

One engine stopped working on the booster on ascent. The boostback burn had more engines fail and then it shut down early. There was a landing burn attempt but it didn't slow the booster sufficiently for a simulated landing. Some work needed there to land future boosters.

The ship lost one vacuum engine early and went to orbit on 5/6 engines. It still reached the target orbit, but had to burn significantly longer for it. "Payload" deployment (mass simulators) is ongoing.

They'll skip the Raptor relight demo, reentry and landing are still planned as usual.

Edit:

Spoiler

Good reentry and landing

 

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View of the pad before and after launch
Looks like some paint or other coating was ablated on the right and there is a bit of black stuff (presumably soot) on the launch table, but otherwise things look great.

Scott Manley made a video
It looks like the booster didn't rotate in the expected direction, which can easily explain the engine issues - the fuel won't be where it should be.

Starship in space, as seen by one of the Starlink simulators:

At around 40 tonnes, the 22 Starlink simulators were the heaviest payload of an (almost-)orbital rocket launch since Polyus in 1987.

 

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More images:


Video from the ground - look at these shockwaves!

 

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New Glenn prepared for a return to flight after its upper stage malfunctioned on the previous flight. The result of the static fire test was ... less static than expected (but it didn't take off like Tianlong-3).





The most spectacular rocket explosion since N1 just happened in Florida

This happened only three hours ago so not much information besides the videos. No one was hurt, they evacuate the area for a static fire. Obviously the flight that was planned for next week isn't going to happen, and this was on the launch pad so they'll have to repair that in addition to building a new rocket. The satellites (for Amazon's Leo constellation) were not on board.