The Chang’e 6 mission is under way. Its goal is to be the first to bring back a sample from the far side of the Moon. It uses backup hardware originally designed for the near side version of this mission, Chang’e 5, which flew in November 2020. Ahead of the mission, a...
The maiden flight of the Japanese commercial KAIROS (Kii-based Advanced and Instant Rocket System) launch vehicle ended in failure after only five seconds of flight. Carrying a dummy satellite, KAIROS was launched from the Kii Space Port, Japan, at 0201 GMT on 13...
A “troubling” space-based anti-satellite weapon is being developed by Russia, according to US intelligence. The news was originally intended just for Congress but, at the request of Republicans, elements of such a threat were disclosed to the public. To allay some of...
The dust had barely settled from the fireworks and celebrations of the new year, before launch vehicles were being launched again. Keep up with the latest launches in January on this page, as we will regularly update our tracker: 1 January 2024...
China’s first launch of 2024 was of four Tianmu radio-occultation weather satellites of the Tianmu constellation. At 1120 GMT on 5 January 2024 a Kuaizhou-1A solid rocket lifted off from Jiuquan carrying the Tianmu-1 15-18. These satellites examine how...
At 0013 GMT on 30 December 2023, a Long March 2C/YZ-1 (CZ-2C/YZ-1S) was launched from Jiuquan launch site carrying a suspected set of three broadband internet communications satellites as prototypes for a Chinese internet satellite constellation. The satellites are...
