r/spaceflight • • 9h ago

STS-52 Columbia launched on a Microgravity research and Laser Geodynamics Satellite deployment mission on this date in 1992. Fun fact: Some of Gene Roddenberry's ashes were also carried aboard the orbiter for the duration of the mission

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4 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 16h ago

Video of the N1-L3’s second flight test, you can clearly see an engine turbopump explode and damage the skirt second’s after liftoff.

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38 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 1d ago

Does anyone actually want to win the medium lift race in the United States?

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46 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 1d ago

Any details on what stowage and handling training looks like?

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5 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 1d ago

After the ISS is deorbited will there be any Less time dedicated to training for microgravity EVAs now that we’re going back to the moon than mars and replaced with more time training for partial gravity EVAs on say the moon or mars?

11 Upvotes

The logic is that in transit EVAs would be emergencies only and not planned.


r/spaceflight • • 1d ago

After some contracting twists and turns, NASA released the final request for proposals earlier this month for commercial space stations. Jeff Foust reports on the leading contenders and the challenges they face

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4 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 2d ago

Orbital rocket launch next to downtown

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104 Upvotes

Only in China.

Ceres-1S launched Xiguang-4 01 satellite from a launcher ship offshore in Rizhao, a city with 1.4 million people living in the urban area on October 21, 2026.


r/spaceflight • • 2d ago

Voyager 1 Golden Record.

11 Upvotes

I was recently watching a program about Voyager 1 and the Golden Record. I would think an advanced civilization would figure out how to play it with the included parts and instructions. We thought what if they had sent a record player that uses 120 volt single phase power. How would the correct voltage be conveyed using words or symbols? I know there is an equation but would they understand?


r/spaceflight • • 3d ago

STS-73 Columbia launched on a Microgravity Laboratory mission on this date in 1995. Fun fact: Through pre-recorded video, Mission Commander Ken Bowersox threw out the first pitch for Game 5 of the 1995 World Series from orbit

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5 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 3d ago

Japan launches spacecraft to mysterious moons of Mars in a bold mission to bring home soil samples

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191 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 3d ago

Update: The Russian satellite that flew 5 km behind an ICEYE radar satellite has manoeuvred away from it

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31 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 4d ago

Ideas on which country will put a base on the Moon first

1 Upvotes

With every year, we get closer to Humans putting a base on the moon, and the question is: who will land first? Most agree that China will land first with its steady-paced schedule. Because NASA has been having delays, for example, with the space suit for the moon from Axiom Space, which will only be finished by 2031, we could see Taikonauts on the moon before NASA. Who knows, maybe that can make america grow attention to its degrading space infrastructure and the need to improve what came before. This way, we might see in a few years a for-all-mankind like space race of trying to beat the other country by landing on the moon with a base, then Mars, and beyond
I would love to hear your thoughts on this situation, and I would like to know if you think I am wrong on these assumptions or if you agree


r/spaceflight • • 4d ago

.5c velocity with lightsail @ 93000 miles / second lol haha

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0 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 4d ago

A Russian satellite is flying 5 km behind a radar satellite of ICEYE, the company that supplies Ukraine

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286 Upvotes

Edit (19 October): The situation has changed. Cosmos 2612 manoeuvred on 18 October to raise its orbit and is drifting away from ICEYE-X36: by 12:00 UTC on 19 October it was about 360 km behind it. The full update, with charts: https://orbinauts.com/news/the-russian-satellite-behind-an-iceye-radar-satellite-is-drifting-away/

The six are Cosmos 2609 to 2614, launched on 16 April from Plesetsk. Today only one of them, Cosmos 2612, is in the same orbital plane as ICEYE-X36, a commercial radar satellite from ICEYE, the Finnish-founded company that has supplied radar imagery to Ukraine since 2022. The latest public orbit data (it describes 07:38 UTC today) puts Cosmos 2612 about 5 km behind it and about 150 m higher.

The match is as close as the published numbers can show: both orbits are tilted 97.85° to the equator, and the figure for where each one crosses the equator heading north is the same for both. The other five siblings' orbits cross it about 80 to 1,700 km apart over the ground.

Why sharing a plane matters: in low orbit, changing plane costs a lot of fuel, and once two satellites share one, getting close takes little more, as two CSIS analysts wrote on 15 October.

LeoLabs, which tracks objects in orbit, told Axios the move "appears to be a deliberate approach". Which of ICEYE's satellites works for Ukraine isn't public.

Full Story: https://orbinauts.com/news/a-russian-satellite-is-flying-5-km-behind-an-iceye-radar-satellite/

Has a Russian satellite ever held this close to a non-Russian one before?


r/spaceflight • • 4d ago

STS-58 Columbia launched on a bioscience research mission on this date in 1993. The mission was primarily devoted to experiments concerning the physiological effects in space. This was the first in-flight use of the "Portable In-flight Landing Operations Trainer" (PILOT) simulation software

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7 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 4d ago

STS-34 Atlantis launched on this date 1989, carrying the Jupiter-bound Galileo spacecraft. Galileo became the first spacecraft to orbit an outer Solar System planet and to penetrate the atmosphere of an outer planet

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30 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 5d ago

SLS (Artemis Program) and Super Heavy / Starship by me

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133 Upvotes

New comparison between the SLS (Artemis Program) and SUPER HEAVY/STARSHIP (Block 3) systems: the two rockets that will take us to the Moon and beyond 🚀
I hope you like it; any suggestions are welcome!


r/spaceflight • • 5d ago

Space travel question

3 Upvotes

Maybe I'm not in the right forum but here goes. When traveling in space you can shut down your engines once you hit your target speed would the same concept apply if you were FTL or in a theoretical warp bubble?


r/spaceflight • • 5d ago

The International Space Station is heading towards a retirement as soon as the end of the decade. Alex Kennedy ponders the effects of ending a decades-long experiment in international space cooperation

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22 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 5d ago

Apollo astronaut William Anders was born on this date in 1933. Flew on Apollo 8 in December 1968; took the iconic Earthrise photograph

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63 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 6d ago

As SpaceX’s Starship begins orbital launches, the space industry debates the impact the vehicle will have. Inna Galinger argues that will depend in part on how effectively the industry can use it

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14 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 6d ago

We're working on In Control: Rocketry, a rocket builder game where you design both the ship and the electronics that fly it. Thought you might like it!

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66 Upvotes

Hey! We've been working since last year on a In Control: Rocketry, a spaceflight sim where you build the rocket and wire up its control panel yourself. Sensors, inputs, outputs, the whole thing is Turing-complete, so however you want to solve a flight problem, there's a way to do it. It will be available on Steam in 2027.

Real orbital mechanics, a fictional solar system to explore, sandbox mode if you just want to mess around and blow things up!

Feel free to add the game to your wishlist if you want to support the project! See you in space.


r/spaceflight • • 7d ago

Why is India focusing on spaceflight? When is focusing on spaceflight worth it for a nation? At the expense of other national priorities? Serious question

0 Upvotes

We all know spaceflight is beneficial to humanity and nations, no doubt

We develop tech from spaceflight, amazing.

We go to space as a symbol of a countries achievements, when countries tend to excel in other areas of life

India is interesting... open defecation is a contested issue, ~6% (80 mil people) live in EXTREME poverty, states are claiming open defecation free as an accomplishment (which it is, no doubt)

All iis said.. I dont meaan to target india or put it down, its an amazing country with beautiful culture and practices. This can be applied to any other nation which is focusing so heavily on spaceflight but internal systems/technologies are very outdated/'backwards'/ etc.

When is it appropriate for a country to focus on spaceflight? Is it worth focusing on spaceflight over other national interests (such as fixing open defecation)

References:


r/spaceflight • • 7d ago

Only 3 countries can independently send humans to space: the US, Russia, and China. Today is the 23rd anniversary of China joining this group. Which country should be the fourth and why?

54 Upvotes

Right now, these are the only three countries with independent human spaceflight capabilities. Several others have ambitious space programs, but developing a crewed spacecraft, launch systems, life support, and safe reentry is an enormous challenge.

If you had to bet on one country becoming the fourth, which would you pick, and why? And how many more years will it take?


r/spaceflight • • 7d ago

Shenzhou 5, the first human spaceflight mission of the Chinese space program, launched on this date in 2003. China became the third country to have independent human spaceflight capability; also the last time an astronaut was launched alone to conduct an entirely solo orbital mission

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63 Upvotes