Launch

Space industry coverage tagged Launch from OuterspaceToday.

• Roman Space Telescope Set for August 30 Falcon Heavy Launch, Eight Months Ahead of Schedule

  July 28, 2026

  NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to lift off at 7:20 a.m. on August 30 aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center. The 42-foot-long observatory is designed to image more than 50 times as much sky in its first five years as the Hubble Space Telescope covered in 30 years, a scale scientists say will surface discoveries no telescope has captured before. The mission aims to study dark energy, dark matter, and new cosmic phenomena by imaging millions of ga

• Rocket Lab Wins $266 Million Space Force Deal for 12 Suborbital Launches, Anchored by New Alaska Site

  July 28, 2026

  Rocket Lab has won a $266 million U.S. Space Force contract to conduct 12 suborbital launches over the next three years, with options for six additional missions. The USSF award is the largest launch contract in Rocket Lab's history and will establish a new company launch location at the Pacific Spaceport Complex-Alaska in Kodiak. The contract was awarded through Space Systems Command's Rocket Systems Launch Program, or RSLP, which procures launch services for experimental, research and nationa

• Classified NRO Payload and Chinese Triple-Header Fill a Busy Launch Week

  July 28, 2026

  A classified National Reconnaissance Office satellite is set to launch from Cape Canaveral this week alongside three Chinese orbital missions, all scheduled within days of each other. The overlapping manifest illustrates the pace at which both the U.S. intelligence community and China are moving hardware to orbit. The week opens with a concentrated block of Chinese activity on July 29, followed by the NRO mission on July 30. Two of the three Chinese launches carry undisclosed payloads, and the

• Rocket Lab Wins $266 Million Space Force Deal, Adds Alaska Launch Site

  July 27, 2026

  Rocket Lab will build a new launch site in Kodiak, Alaska, under a $266 million U.S. Space Force contract for up to 18 suborbital missions, the company's largest launch award to date. The deal expands Rocket Lab's role in military launch services as the Pentagon seeks more capacity for weapons testing. The contract was awarded by Space Systems Command's Rocket Systems Launch Program, which provides responsive launch services for research, development and operational test missions across the Def

• SpaceX Sets Sights on First Starship Upper Stage Tower Catch for Flight 14

  July 27, 2026

  SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk announced on July 25, 2026, that the company will attempt to catch the Starship upper stage with its launch tower arms on the upcoming Flight 14 mission. The move, revealed within hours of Flight 13's ocean splashdown, would mark the first time the upper stage is recovered at the tower rather than at sea, and a major step toward full reusability for the heavy-lift system. The announcement followed the Flight 13 test on Friday, July 24, 2026, which ended

• SpaceX Declines Falcon 9 Bookings Beyond 2028 to Steer Customers Toward Starship

  July 24, 2026

  SpaceX has begun turning away satellite operators seeking dedicated Falcon 9 launches beyond 2028, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg on July 23. The move deliberately constrains the company's most reliable and profitable rocket in order to push customers toward Starship, a vehicle that has not yet completed a fully successful operational mission. The decision represents one of the most aggressive product-transition bets in aerospace history. Falcon 9 is the world's most-flown orbit

• SpaceX Targets July 23 for Second Flight of Moon-Bound Starship V3

  July 23, 2026

  SpaceX is now targeting Thursday, July 23, for the 13th test flight of Starship after scrubbing its first attempt on July 16. It will be only the second launch of the vehicle's V3 configuration, the version selected to fly astronauts to the Moon for NASA's Artemis program. The 90-minute launch window opens at 6:45 p.m. EDT from Starbase, Texas. During the July 16 attempt, four of the Super Heavy booster's 33 Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite as the countdown reached zero, triggering an automati

• Relativity Space Commits to Thousands of Jobs at Cape Canaveral by 2034

  July 22, 2026

  Relativity Space plans a major expansion of its Cape Canaveral operations, with Space Florida officials announcing the company intends to add thousands of high-paying jobs by 2034. The commitment positions the 3D-printing-focused launch company as a growing employer in Florida's space corridor. Space Florida officials disclosed the expansion plans, which center on the company's existing Cape Canaveral operations. The announcement did not include a specific job count beyond the reference to thou

• Orienspace Completes Third Gravity-1 Sea Launch, Placing Nine Satellites in Orbit

  July 22, 2026

  Chinese commercial launch firm Orienspace conducted the third flight of its Gravity-1 solid rocket on July 22, lifting off from waters off Shanghai and successfully placing nine satellites into orbit. The mission marked the vehicle's third flight overall and was carried out from a sea-launch platform in Chinese coastal waters. The Gravity-1 is a 30-meter-long solid rocket operated by Orienspace, a commercial firm rather than a state launch provider. The July 22 mission adds to a growing flight

• Northrop Grumman Launches Robotic Servicing Vehicle Toward Geosynchronous Orbit

  July 21, 2026

  A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday carrying Northrop Grumman's Mission Robotic Vehicle and three Mission Extension Pods, a mission built to prolong the working lives of multiple satellites already in geosynchronous orbit. The launch marks one of the first operational robotic satellite servicing efforts aimed at that altitude, roughly 22,000 miles up. The Mission Robotic Vehicle carries the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites payload, a pa

• NASA Sets August 30 Launch for Roman Space Telescope on Falcon Heavy

  July 18, 2026

  NASA has opened media accreditation for the launches of its Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the SpaceX Crew-13 mission, both targeting liftoff in the coming months. The Roman observatory is slated to launch no earlier than 7:20 a.m. EDT on Sunday, August 30, aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Roman telescope is named after NASA's first chief astronomer. It was built and tested at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in G

• Skyroot's Vikram-1 Reaches Orbit on Debut Flight, a First for Indian Commercial Rockets

  July 18, 2026

  Skyroot Aerospace's Vikram-1 rocket lifted off on its inaugural flight July 18, becoming the first commercial Indian rocket to reach orbit. The company declared the upper stage reached its planned 450-kilometer low Earth orbit 15 minutes after liftoff, achieving orbital insertion on its first attempt. The launch, called Mission Aagaman, Sanskrit for "arrival," lifted off at 2:35 a.m. Eastern from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India's main spaceport. The liftoff was delayed by 35 minutes due t