Pins matching tag:Space

On 19 December 2025 Rocket Lab announced a prime contract from the US Space Development Agency worth US$816 million to build 18 Tracking Layer Tranche 3 satellites, its largest contract to date.

Smart texted between Catanduanes and Metro Manila and loaded its website through Lynk Global's low-orbit satellites, its first direct-to-device satellite test, from a coastal village in Pandan.

China flew a Long March 10 prototype and the Mengzhou crew capsule from Wenchang on 11 February 2026, the first Max-Q abort test, with both stage and capsule recovered at sea.

Smart and Lynk Global texted Metro Manila by satellite and reached the DICT and PAGASA websites from Burgos, Bangui and Pagudpud, Ilocos Norte coastal towns facing the West Philippine Sea.

On 6 April 2026 the four astronauts of NASA's Artemis II passed the 248,655-mile mark set by Apollo 13 in 1970, then peaked at about 252,756 miles (406,771 km) from Earth on their loop around the Moon. It is the greatest distance any crewed spacecraft has travelled.

The three biggest US carriers agreed in principle to form a joint venture pooling spectrum so satellite operators can reach phones directly and all but end wireless dead zones.

Shenzhou-23 lifted off from Jiuquan on 24 May 2026 with commander Zhu Yangzhu, pilot Zhang Zhiyuan and Hong Kong payload specialist Lai Ka-ying, one of whom will stay on Tiangong for a full year.

On 12 June 2026 SpaceX opened on the Nasdaq at US$150 a share, 11% above its US$135 IPO price, after raising US$75 billion at an implied valuation of about US$1.77 trillion, the biggest public offering ever.

On 29 June 2026 Rocket Lab and Iridium Communications announced a definitive agreement under which Rocket Lab will buy Iridium for US$54 a share in cash and stock, an enterprise value of about US$8.0 billion.

China's Tianwen-2 spacecraft reached within 20 km of Earth's quasi-moon Kamoʻoalewa, the National Space Administration announced on 6 July 2026, beginning China's first asteroid sample-return effort.

On 4 August 2026 Rocket Lab said it won a US$397 million US Space Force contract to build, launch on Neutron and operate Flatellite spacecraft for the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator program.

A Long March 7A carrying ChinaSat-4B failed about 85 seconds after liftoff from Wenchang on 10 August 2026, the rocket's first failure since its 2020 debut.

SpaceX and Louisiana announced a planned USD 100 billion spaceport in Vermilion Parish on August 25, 2026. The state describes five launch complexes with two pads each and 3,000 expected direct jobs over ten years. Construction is targeted for 2027 and a first launch as early as 2029. These are planned milestones; residents are challenging the public process around the parish deal.

A batch of 27 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system. Lifts off from Space Launch Complex 4E, Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA to Low Earth Orbit. The booster is due to land at Of Course I Still Love You.

Share-ride of 9 commercial Earth observation and technology demonstration satellites to SSO, details TBD. Lifts off from Launch Area 130, Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, People's Republic of China to Sun-Synchronous Orbit.

Synthetic aperture radar satellite for Japanese Earth imaging company Synspective. Lifts off from Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1B, Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1, Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand to Low Earth Orbit.

A classified mission for the United States Space Force. It is possibly a batch of classified LEO satellites based on SpaceX’s Starshield satellite bus, based on locations of rocket stage drop zones being exact fits with previous Starlink Group 15 launches. Lifts off from Space Launch Complex 4E, Vandenberg SFB, CA, USA to Low Earth Orbit. The booster is due to land at Of Course I Still Love You.

SpaceX's 14th Starship test flight lifted off from Starbase, Texas at 7:48 a.m. CT on 28 September 2026 and became the first Starship to reach orbit, after 13 earlier flights that were all suborbital. One of the ship's six engines shut down during ascent; Starship still reached orbit and released 26 Starlink V3 satellites, the first of the new generation and its first operational payload. The flight was cut from a planned ten hours to about three: the ship deorbited and splashed down in the Pacific north of Hawaii, and the Super Heavy booster splashed down in the Gulf off Starbase instead of a tower catch.

The Pentagon plans the first tests of Golden Dome space-based interceptors before 31 December 2026, with orbital flight demonstrations in 2027, backed by $3.2 billion for prototypes from Anduril, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and True Anomaly.

SpaceX Crew-13 is the thirteenth crewed operational flight of a Crew Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. Lifts off from Space Launch Complex 40, Cape Canaveral SFS, FL, USA to Low Earth Orbit. The booster is due to land at Landing Zone 40.

South Korea's fifth Nuri flight lifted off at 12:25 KST on 7 October, deploying five NEONSAT spacecraft and nine CubeSats into their target orbits. KASA confirmed normal stage operation and the first NEONSAT ground contact.

Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg at 5:28 p.m. PDT on October 12 with 27 Starlink satellites. The tracker identifies booster B1088; deployment and landing outcomes await verification.

MMX launched successfully from Tanegashima on October 19 at 19:41 UTC, with the Idefix rover aboard. Its planned journey to Phobos and eventual sample return remain ahead.

Shenzhou-24 is planned for launch from Jiuquan around late October to November 2026, bringing a Pakistani astronaut to China's Tiangong station for a one-week visit.

SpaceX is targeting no earlier than November 13, 2026 for Starship Flight 15, according to Eric Berger’s November 5 report of launch vice president Kiko Dontchev’s UP.Summit remarks. No final liftoff time is announced.

After seven years and nine planetary flybys, the joint ESA/JAXA mission separates into two orbiters to study Mercury. Scheduled date.

Progress resupply mission to the International Space Station. Lifts off from 31/6, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Republic of Kazakhstan to Low Earth Orbit.

Amazon says it has launched enough Leo satellites for initial service and will open its satellite broadband to consumers later in 2026, after an enterprise preview that began April 8.

AST SpaceMobile expects to start beta space-based cellular broadband with AT&T and Verizon before the end of 2026, reaching ordinary phones over Verizon's 850 MHz spectrum, though coverage will be intermittent until more satellites fly.

Kalshi settles its annual SpaceX launch tally at the end of 2026. On 20 September 2026 above 120 launches was all but certain at 97%, above 140 traded at 68% and above 150 at 11%. Polymarket’s bucketed version agreed, putting 140–159 at 75.9%.

China's new-generation Mengzhou spacecraft and the crew-rated Long March 10A rocket are scheduled to fly together for the first time in late 2026, an uncrewed test docking at Tiangong.

China said Chang'e-7 'does not meet the conditions for launch' in its August 2026 window, postponing the lunar south pole lander until early 2027, with a February or March window rumoured.

AST SpaceMobile now expects about 45 satellites in orbit in early 2027, with beta offerings before the end of 2026 and commercial direct-to-device service in the first half of 2027, after launch delays pushed back a late-2026 target.

SpaceX plans to begin launching its second-generation Starlink Mobile direct-to-cell constellation on Starship in mid-2027, deploying about 1,200 satellites within six months for global voice and data coverage in S-band spectrum, pending regulatory approvals.

NASA plans a four-person Earth-orbit demonstration in 2027, testing Orion rendezvous and docking with commercial lander test vehicles. The first Artemis lunar landing is assigned to Artemis IV, targeted for 2028.

Smart plans to switch on commercial satellite-to-phone service with Lynk Global in 2027, the first in the Philippines, starting with texts and light data for remote islands and disaster zones.

Docking two Starships is the step that makes orbital propellant transfer — and with it Artemis and Mars — possible. On 20 September 2026 Kalshi gave it a 69% chance before 2028, while Polymarket’s dated ladder put only 3.2% on it happening by the end of 2026 against 51.5% by the end of 2027.

Vodafone Spain plans to launch Vodafone SAT, a direct-to-device service for ordinary phones covering voice, messaging and data via the Satellite Connect Europe joint venture with AST SpaceMobile, starting in 2027 once Spain's D2D regulatory framework is in place.

A nuclear-powered rotorcraft that will fly between sites on Saturn's moon Titan, arriving in the 2030s. Scheduled date.

On 20 September 2026 Kalshi’s moon-landing market priced a crewed NASA landing at 1.3% before 2027, 2.3% before 2028, 13% before 2029 and 44% before 2030 — putting the largest single year of probability, about 31 points, on 2029. The companion market had the United States as the next country to do it at 55%, with China at 28%.

NASA's largest planetary probe begins dozens of flybys of Europa to assess whether its subsurface ocean could support life. Scheduled date.

NASA plans to retire the 25-year-old ISS by guiding it into a remote stretch of the South Pacific using a purpose-built SpaceX deorbit vehicle.

After more than three decades in orbit, the ISS is to be steered into a controlled destructive reentry over the South Pacific. Estimated date.

ESA's mission to Ganymede, Callisto and Europa, ending as the first spacecraft to orbit a moon of another planet. Scheduled date.