Space Explored

Monday and Tuesday morning, Blue Origin made two attempts to launch its New Glenn rocket on its inaugural mission. However, neither ended with the rocket leaving the launch pad, so why did they scrub?

SpaceX hit another reusability milestone with a Falcon 9 booster launching and landing for a 25th time over the weekend. Launching 21 Starlink V2 mini satellites, the mission continues SpaceX’s goal to build out its Starlink constellation and its mission to push reusable rockets to their limits.

Last night Blue Origin scrubbed its attempt to launch its first New Glenn rocket. The company announced it will be reattempting to launch the rocket during tonight’s window of the same time. Weather, however, is currently at 70% chance of violation, potentially adding to another delay past Wednesday.

Update: Blue Origin announced a delay to January 16.

Last night, or early this morning, Blue Origin scrubbed its first New Glenn launch attempt after about two hours of troubleshooting problems and takes the cake for arguably the worst launch stream ever produced. Also taking place this week, Sierra Space‘s CEO departed the company without any previous announcement or reason, sparking speculation.

Checkout the podcast version of Terminal Count here.

After roughly two hours of delays, Blue Origin scrubbed its first night of attempting to launch New Glenn. This was to be expected, as large rockets can be quite difficult to get launched for the first time. What wasn’t expected, or what should have been expected given past streams, was the lack of information throughout the night as to what was happening.

Later tonight, we’re expecting Blue Origin to launch its first New Glenn rocket, hopefully successfully. You might have a lot of questions as to what New Glenn is, why they’re launching this rocket, what it’s doing, and more. Here’s everything you need to know about New Glenn’s first launch.

Update: Blue Origin sends first New Glenn rocket into orbit

As of early Saturday afternoon, Blue Origin is still on for launching its inaugural New Glenn rocket early Monday morning on the East Coast. While some of you won’t want to stay up to watch the launch, I’m sure the hardcore among you will want to; here’s how to watch Blue Origin’s first New Glenn launch online.

Update: Watch Blue Origin launch its first New Glenn rocket [Update: Third Attempt]

SpaceX has delayed the launch of its seventh Starship rocket to Monday, January 15. Little details were shared about the delay, but this is likely due to poor weather conditions.

After six long years, BepiColombo made its final flyby of the little planet Mercury. In 2026, the spacecraft plans to enter orbit around the closest planet to the Sun and begin a one-year-long science mission.

Blue Origin announced it would be delaying its inaugural New Glenn launch to Monday morning due to recovery weather. The launch window will remain the same at 1:00 A.M. ET and last until 4:00 A.M. ET.

SpaceX completed a wet dress rehearsal of its fully stacked Starship rocket Friday, clearing the way for launch this Monday. This mission will set the new record for the largest rocket ever launched, thanks to the slightly taller Block 2 Ship 33 second stage.

So far, each Starship flight has been first and foremost a test flight. Starship Flight 7 will be no different. SpaceX has a list of new hardware and changes to the vehicle and launch mount that will need to be tested during next week’s launch. Here’s a list of ten changes SpaceX has made for Starship Flight 7.

When you think of NASA buildings, you probably think of Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Johnson Space Center in Texas, or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory out in LA. You probably don’t think of its Washington, DC, headquarters. There have been two interesting proposals made for potentially new headquarters for the agency, neither of which is in DC. Is a move even possible?

Blue Origin has finally formally announced a launch date for New Glenn‘s first flight, which will be no earlier than this Friday at 1:00 A.M. ET. The mission will carry its Blue Ring Pathfinder payload and be the first mission to certify it for national security missions by the Space Force.

Update: Blue Origin delays New Glenn launch due to recovery weather

We’re only into the first full week of the new year, and it’s already looking pretty packed, with Blue Origin looking to debut its New Glenn rocket while SpaceX is gearing up for its seventh Starship rocket. Both of these missions could have dynamic schedules, so it’s possible we’ll just be stuck with a handful of Starlink missions as well.

Checkout the podcast version of Terminal Count here.

For years, Blue Origin has been preparing for the moment when its New Glenn rocket would rise from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and now the company is poised to make history. Its maiden liftoff is set to occur as soon as later this week from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

Next week, SpaceX is hoping to launch its next Starship test flight, its seventh overall. The company released a detailed flight plan and explained what changes are coming to the new Block 2 Starship upper stage and what will be inside its payload bay.

It’s not very often a brand new rocket debuts from the Space Coast, at most a once-a-year ordeal. But here we are, static fire done, droneship… I mean, Landing Platform departing, and a TFR putting New Glenn‘s inaugural launch potentially early next week.

SpaceX has been the de facto launcher for most of the world ever since the Falcon 9 started ramping up its launch cadence and lowering costs about a decade ago. While many companies say they compete with SpaceX, in reality, they are a monopoly for commercial launch; if you need something done quickly, it’s going to be on a Falcon 9. Is 2025 finally the year we see another option emerge?

SpaceX launched its final mission of the year early this morning. Unshockingly to anyone, that was a batch of Starlink satellites. Tomorrow starts a whole new year of launching rockets, but how did SpaceX do in 2024? What sort of takeaways can we get for what we’ll see in 2025?

After tracking all of SpaceX’s launches over the year, here are the highlights.

Before the year is out, SpaceX will have launched 138 rockets in 2024, the vast majority out of the busiest spaceport in the world, Cape Canaveral. With the need to fit more Starlink missions into its manifest, it turned to the quiet spaceport of Vandenberg, where it launched 46 Falcon 9s, a new record.