Launch

Monday evening, SpaceX’s “Fram2” lifted off successfully from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The mission marked the first human spaceflight to fly in a true polar orbit, passing directly over both the North and South Poles. The mission name references the historic Norwegian ship Fram, which was used during polar expeditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The crew of FRAM2, the first crewed spaceflight to fly over Earth’s poles, is set and ready to launch as soon as a week from today. The four crew members completed their training at SpaceX‘s Hawthorne offices and are now off to Cape Canaveral to enter quarantine before launch.

For the last couple of years, SpaceX has been shaving hours off its booster turnaround timelines. This has turned months-long turnarounds into weeks; last week, SpaceX finally got that timeline down to just nine days! The company also just recently broke a launch pad turnaround timeline as well.

We’re soon closing the chapter on the first quarter of 2025, and so far the only companies in the headlines for launches have been SpaceX and Rocket Lab, with other companies like Firefly soon to follow. However, SpaceX’s supposed competitor has been nowhere, still waiting on final work from the Space Force that its Vulcan rocket is cleared to launch the missions it was contracted to do. So when might ULA, Vulcan, or Atlas finally launch next?

Over the weekend and yesterday, NASA and SpaceX successfully rotated out Crew-9 for Crew-10 at the International Space Station. The crew members included former Starliner crew members, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore.

Last night, SpaceX attempted to launch its Crew-10 mission from LC-39A; however, it ran into a snag about 40 minutes before liftoff, scrubbing the launch. NASA and SpaceX will reattempt to launch the international crew of four on Friday, March 14 at 7:03 P.M. ET.

After being first reported over two years ago, Blue Origin has finally released details on its first all-female New Shepard mission, commanded by helicopter pilot, entrepreneur, and girlfriend of Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sánchez.

Last week featured a rare zero-launch week for SpaceX’s Falcon rocket as the company jumps back after a failed booster on March 2. SpaceX is expected to return to Falcon launches this week with the launch of two NASA payloads: SPHEREx and PUNCH.

SpaceX was able to get its Starship Flight 8 off the ground after a scrub Monday afternoon; its goal was to repeat the Flight 7 objectives. However, Flight 8 ended in a similar spot, with Ship 34’s ascent into space being cut short due to an unknown issue.

Later this afternoon, SpaceX will make its second attempt to launch its Starship Flight 8 mission from Starbase, Texas. The launch will largely be a repeat of Flight 7, which concluded early before much of its testing could be done. Below is everything SpaceX wanted to test on Flight 7 but will now be testing on Flight 8, plus other tidbits on the launch!

SpaceX is planning to launch its Starship Flight 8 later this afternoon from its launch site in South Texas. The flight will mostly be a rehash of Flight 7, focusing on testing the changes to Starship Block 2, new heat shield modifications, and deploying its first dummy satellites into space.

SpaceX X Livestream: https://x.com/i/broadcasts/1lPKqMQbAWLKb

SpaceX scrubbed its Starship Flight 8 launch attempt on Monday afternoon. The cause for the scrub was not entirely shared, but it seemed to have shown up in the late stages of the count and involved the Super Heavy Booster.

SpaceX is cleared for its rescheduled launch attempt of Starship Flight 8 this Monday afternoon. However, we still await the final part of the rocket to make its way to the launch site for final assembly and testing.

Monday night into Tuesday morning, SpaceX teams down at its Starbase facility moved Booster 15 from the production site to its launch pad. The booster is now stacked on Pad A’s mount as it gets ready for its potential Starship Flight 8 launch date on Friday.

SpaceX shared its recap video of the Starship Flight 7 launch on its YouTube channel Monday evening. The company also shared a blog post detailing the cause of the failure. This usually takes place once the team finishes the data review of the mission and is ready to launch its next Starship, which will be Flight 8 no earlier than Friday.

According to SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, the company will be attempting to launch Starship Flight 8 no earlier than Friday, February 28. There are still a few hurdles SpaceX will have to overcome before Starship can launch again.

SpaceX hasn’t stopped working on getting its Starship Flight 8 hardware ready to fly, but does it have a chance to launch by the end of February? If previous timelines are to be believed, it seems unlikely, and that’s before the FAA releases the rocket from its mishap investigation.

SpaceX successfully static-fired the booster to be used for the flight of Starship Flight 8. The booster was rolled out Saturday after spending a few weeks in the MegaBay receiving its 33 Raptor engines.

Tuesday morning, Blue Origin launches its 29th New Shepard mission from West Texas. While the missions have become rather mundane, this time the company was able to spin the capsule up to simulate lunar gravity for the payloads it carried.

Last week, SpaceX launched its seventh Starship rocket on a test flight that didn’t go nearly as far as many had hoped. So what’s the progress on Starship Flight 8, and how will 7’s shortcomings affect its timeline?