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Virgin's 'LauncherOne' Reaches Orbit
Virgin Orbit successfully achieved orbit with their 'LauncherOne' air dropped rocket for the first time on Sunday, January 17th at about 11:49 am PST. Carrying the 'ELaNa-20' mission for NASA, this comes as a welcome relief after last year's initial orbital test ended prematurely when a leak in a propellant line triggered an abort shortly after ignition.LauncherOne dropping from its carrier plane (Virgin Orbit/Greg Robinson) Nothing says 'we can make it to orbit' like making it to orbit, and no
NASA's (partially) Successful SLS Hot Fire Test
Details following NASA's first hot fire test of a complete SLS first stage rocket core.
Turksat-5A Kicks Off 2021
On Thursday January 7th, 2021, SpaceX kicks off the new year with the launch of Turksat-5A from SLC-40 in Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 9;15 pm. The launch was a total success and marked the forth flight of this particular booster, B1060. The Turksat-5A satellite is a 3,500 kg (7,700 lb) communications satellite built by Airbus using its Eurostar E3000EOR bus as its platform. It is to be situated in Geostationary Orbit, nearly 36,000 km (22,000 miles) above the surface. It will at 31 deg
SpaceX kicks off 2021 with the 50th flight of a fight-proven booster
At 9:15pm EST last night, SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket roared off Launch Complex 40 on its first mission of the year, Turksat 5A. This satellite is a telecommunications satellite that was started in 2011 by the state-owned Turksat AS. This was the 4th launch and recovery of this specific booster, previously being flow on GPS III-3 and Starlink missions 11 and 14. With this launch it marked the 50th time a flight-proven first stage has been reflown, with the first one being at the end of March in 201