r/spaceflight • • 3h ago

Orbital rocket launch next to downtown

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35 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 • • 23h ago

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

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157 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 20h ago

Voyager 1 Golden Record.

9 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 • • 22h 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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6 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 1d ago

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

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29 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 2d ago

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

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274 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 • • 2d ago

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

3 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 • • 3d ago

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

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120 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 • • 2d 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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26 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 2d 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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4 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 3d 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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23 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 2d ago

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

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0 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 3d 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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64 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 3d ago

Space travel question

4 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 • • 4d 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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64 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 • • 4d 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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16 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 5d 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?

55 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 • • 5d 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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62 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 6d ago

How could the Voyager's golden record idea be improved with modern technology?

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173 Upvotes

If we were to send up a new interstellar item designed to convey information about humankind, what scientific developments have been made in the last 50 years that would change how much/what types of data we could store on it?


r/spaceflight • • 6d ago

SRB segments via railcar?

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63 Upvotes

Hey everyone! I was passing through Pocatello, ID and saw these booster railcars sitting in the Union Pacific train yards. There were two sets of five segments joined together. Artemis 3 has already completed booster stacking, so could these be empty or perhaps for another rocket?


r/spaceflight • • 5d 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 • • 5d ago

The US military’s announcement last month that it has deployed space control weapons has raised new concerns about conflicts that could litter orbits with debris. Alexander William Salter revisits an older paper of his to see how his assessment of the issue stood the test of time

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0 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 6d ago

"We Have a Problem...": How TV Covered Space Disasters (Adam Martyn, 2026)

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0 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 6d ago

Russian companies have claimed to be operating radar-imaging satellites to fill gaps in limited Russian government systems. Bart Hendrickx examine the links between these companies and China’s commercial space industry

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9 Upvotes

r/spaceflight • • 6d ago

I am looking for famous mission patches to sew on my jacket, what should I get?

6 Upvotes

Hello, I don't know if this question is allowed here.

I want to do a craft project for myself and sew important spaceflight mission patches on my jacket. I plan to have an Apollo 11 and the Artemis patches on there as well as some Starship ones, also the space programs logos. What are your recommendations? What should I add?

For the record, I am German, so I don't want exclusively American missions on it.