Stephen Clark

The nine-engine first stage for Isar Aerospace’s Spectrum rocket lights up on the launch pad on February 14. Credit: Isar Aerospace Isar builds almost all of its rockets in-house, including Spectrum’s Aquila engines. “The flight will be the first integrated […]

China begins building a new megaconstellation. The first batch of Internet satellites for China’s Guowang megaconstellation launched Monday on the country’s heavy-lift Long March 5B rocket, Ars reports. The satellites are the first of up to 13,000 spacecraft a consortium of

While there are open questions about how China will use its satellite megaconstellations, their deployment will require a significant increase in the country’s launch capacity, driving the development of new commercial rockets, including reusable boosters, to lower costs and increase their

Mastalir said China is “copying the US playbook” with the way it integrates satellites into more conventional military operations on land, in the air, and at sea. “Their specific goals are to be able to track and target US high-value

Two spacecraft developed by the European Space Agency launched on top of an Indian rocket Thursday, kicking off a mission to test novel formation flying technologies and observe a rarely-seen slice of the Sun’s ethereal corona. ESA’s Proba-3 mission is

“We have since determined that while the capsule was dipping in and out of the atmosphere, as part of that planned skip entry, heat accumulated inside the heat shield outer layer, leading to gases forming and becoming trapped inside the

President-elect Donald Trump announced Wednesday he has selected Jared Isaacman, a billionaire businessman and space enthusiast who twice flew to orbit with SpaceX, to become the next NASA administrator. “I am delighted to nominate Jared Isaacman, an accomplished business leader,

NASA taps Falcon Heavy for another big launch. A little more than a month after SpaceX launched NASA’s flagship Europa Clipper mission on a Falcon Heavy rocket, the space agency announced its next big interplanetary probe will also launch on

Notably, the Dragonfly launch was one of the first times United Launch Alliance has been eligible to bid its new Vulcan rocket for a NASA launch contract. NASA officials gave the green light for the Vulcan rocket to compete head-to-head

The Oreshnik missiles strike their targets at speeds of up to Mach 10, or 2.5 to 3 kilometers per second, Putin said. “The existing air defense systems around the world, including those being developed by the US in Europe, are