Announcement: Gunter's Space Page to Transition to a Paid Model — Gunter Krebs space.skyrocket.de

A Vega-C rocket has successfully launched the joint European-Chinese SMILE satellite. It is research mission to investigate the interaction of solar wind with Earth's magnetosphere and ionosphere. space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/smi...

Gunter's Space Page is now 30 years old!!! While I can not pinpoint the exact day, my oldest back up files hint for a beginning in May 1996. Starting as an "external memory", my website has apparently become some kind of industry standard. space.skyrocket.de

Mixed result for 3rd flight of @BlueOrigin's New Glenn rocket: Reflown stage 1 successfully launched & landed. Stage 2 underperformed & left @AST_SpaceMobile's Bluebird-7 sat in off-nominal orbit. Final orbital elements not yet released, but I'm not optimistic. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/new-...

Welcome back to Earth, Artemis II (Integrity)! Mission accomplished! Well done!

Humanity is finally back on the way to the Moon. The Artemis-2 mission with the crew of Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch & Jeremy Hansen has successfully started their 10 day voyage on a SLS Bl.1 rocket to fly around the moon. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau_det/...

Yesterday China successfully conducted the maiden flight of the Lijian-2 (Kinetica-2) liquid fueled launch vehicle. It carried three satellites, among them the prototype of the Qingzhou transporter to be used to supply the Chinese Space Station. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/liji...

Sad to report the passing of Mike Melvill, pilot of the 1st commercial suborbital spaceflight. He flew 1st SpaceShipOne mission above the Kármán line & with SS1 spinning I didn’t expect him to return alive. He stayed calm, returned safely & flew a 2nd time. www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl3Y...

Firefly Alpha successfully returned to flight. The last flight of the Block 1 version tested systems for Block 2 and put a Lockheed Martin Technology Test payload (possibly similar to the one lost in the last launch failure) in orbit. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/fire...

HEO (@heospace) has imaged @AST_SpaceMobile 's Bluebird 6 satellite in orbit. It looks significantly different from the illustrations on AST Space Mobile's website. x.com/heospace/sta...

A SpaceX Falcon-9 booster has launched the large EchoStar 25 direct broadcasting satellite to a geosynchronous transfer orbit. The 6800 kg satellite was built by Lanteris (formerly Maxar). space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/ech...

Space One's KAIROS small solid fueled launch vehicle has launched for the 3rd time from Spaceport Kii and again failed to reach orbit. About 1 min into the flight an energetic event was observed. 5 small satellites were lost. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/kair...

The number of launches and especially of individual satellites have drastically increased in 2025.

And here are the launch statistics for 2025 by launch vehicle families: Note: * includes the marginally suborbital Starship launches * includes Iranian Zoljanah launch, which is unclear, if it was orbital attempt

As every year, here are the launch statistics for 2025 by country. Note: * includes the marginally suborbital Starship launches * includes Iranian Zoljanah launch, which is unclear, if it was orbital attempt * RocketLab launches are listed as New Zealand / USA

Wow - the Musk-Trump-bromance turns into a full-bloom divorce battle. Collateral damage may be crewed spaceflight, as Musk threatens to decommission the Dragon crewed spacecraft. I did not see this escalating so fast...

This article confirms that the USA are already testing satellites to track aircraft as a replacement for AWACS. Question is which are the satellites? Likely not the NRO or SDA missions. Unlikely also GEO sats and small sats. (1/2) aviationweek.com/defense/airc...

Some users had problem accessing Gunter's Space Page during the past few hours. This was caused by an invalid certificate. The issue has now been corrected and accessing the website should work as usual now. Please let me know, if you still have issues. space.skyrocket.de

"Trump says Palestinians should leave Gaza permanently and US will ‘take over’ strip" What the FCK is wrong with this guy? (Question is rhetorical!) His ideas of diplomacy are equivalent to using a chainsaw for brain surgery! We, the world, are so screwed! edition.cnn.com/2025/02/04/p...

I wonder, when SpaceX and Tesla will realize, that Elon Musk has become a massive liability for them.

Dear crowd, does anyone know if the very first RocketLab Electron rocket ('It's a test') carried already the Kick Stage? IIRC, the Kick Stage was only announced on the 2nd flight. Currently I have listed the 1st flight in my database as having no kick stage, but i still lack a solid confirmation.

Wow, for the first time a got a KatWarn (a German catastrophe warning app) warning for reentering space debris (discarded ISS batteries).

Intuitive Machines' Nova-C IM1 lander (Odysseus), the 2nd mission in NASA's CLPS program, has landed on the moon. A weak signal has been received, but it is too weak to transmit data. Let's see, if a communication can be established. space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/nov...

The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has launched the Suraya satellite (purpose unknow, possibly communications) on the 1st successful orbital flight of the Qaem-100 rocket, reaching a 750 km orbit. Launch site was the Shahroud Missile Test Site. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/qaem...

The Japanese SLIM lunar lander has successfully landed at Shioli crater. Both the LEV-1 nanohopper & LEV-2 the nanorover have been deployed. Unfortunately the solar array malfunctioned and the mission will only last until the batteries run out of power. space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/sli...

Chinese company Orienspace has performed the maiden launch of their Yinli-1 (Gravity-1) solid-fueled launcher from a barge in the Yellow Sea. It successfully placed 3 Yunyao-1 earth observation sats into orbit. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/yinl...

Astrobotics Peregrine lunar lander has suffered shortly after launch a propulsion failure which led to a critical loss of propellants. I think, this likely rules out a lunar landing. :-( But perhaps some engineering data can be gathered.

Payload for the 1st Vulcan launch was @astrobotic Peregrine lunar lander - the first mission under NASA's CLPS program. It carries several payloads for NASA and Additionally a @celestisflights capsule with human remains was attached to the Centaur stage. space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/per...

@ulalaunch Vulcan rocket has successfully conducted its maiden flight. It is powered by 2 @blueorigin built BE-4 engines fueled with LNG/LOX. 2 GEM-63XL solid fuel boosters provided additional thrust. A dual engine Centaur-5 was the upper stage. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/vulc...

North Korea has launched the 3rd Chollima-1 orbital rocket today with apparently the 3rd Malligyong-1 spy sat ahead of the announced launch window. Two launches in May and August both failed to reach orbit. The outcome of today's launch is not yet known. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/chol...

A highlight from today from my email inbox: Some guy threats to start legal actions against me if I do not stop using my satellites to monitor him and to manipulate his brain waves.

Yesterday China launched a new crew towards the Chinese Space Station. Shenzhou-17's crew consists of Tang Hongbo, Tang Shengjie & Jiang Xinlin. space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/sz-...

Russia has successfully launched the military Kosmos-2570 satellite on a Soyuz-2-1b rocket. Launch site was Plesetsk. The satellite is most likely the 7th Lotos-S1 ELINT satellite. It is expected to deploy a small subsatellite after circularizing orbit. space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/lot...

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket has launched NASA's Psyche probe towards the eponymous metal-rich asteroid (16) Psyche. space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/psy...

The Nauka (MLM-U) lab module on the Russian segment of the ISS has suffered a coolant leak on the external back-up radiator. Roskosmos reports the leak didn't affect the usual crew schedule and that the primary radiator operates normally. space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/mlm...

An Arianespace Vega has launched a cluster of 12 small satellites (10 of them CubeSats) into orbit. This was the penultimate flight of the standard Vega version. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau_fam/...

PLD Space's Miura-1 reusable sounding rocket has conducted it's maiden flight to an altitude of 47 km. An apogee of 50 km was planned (originally 80 km was planned, but the trajectory was changed for security reasons before the launch) space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/miur...

An Atlas-V(501) has successfully put the first 2 protoflight units of Amazon's Kuipersat constellation into orbit. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau_det/...

Another successful suborbital Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo flight. Crew: Kelly Latimer (Cdr), Rick Sturckow (Plt), Beth Moses (AI) and passengers Ron Rosano (USA), Trevor Beattie (UK), Namira Salim (Pak). space.skyrocket.de/doc_sat/ss2_...

#Iran’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has launched its 3rd satellite Noor-3 into orbit using a Qased rocket. Launch site was likely again Sharoud. The success of the launch has not yet been independently confirmed. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/qase...

NASA's #OSIRISREx sample capsule has successfully landed at the Utah Test and Training Range, returning samples from Asteroid 101955 Bennu. The remaining spacecraft has been diverted to a course to a rendezvous with asteroid 99942 Apophis in 2029. space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/osi...

A Chinese Ceres-1 (Gushenxing-1) rocket has launched from Jiuquan, but failed to put its Jilin-1 Gaofen-04B payload into orbit. It was the 10th launch and the 1st failure of this vehicle. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/cere...

A @RocketLab Electron rocket launched from Mahia, New Zealand, has failed to reach orbit. The payload, @capellaspace's Acadia-2 radar earth observation sat was lost. The rocket failed on 2nd stage engine ignition right after staging. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/elec...

Dear crowd, has someone tried to compile a list of people who are "founder astronauts" (a.k.a. early ticket purchaser) of Virgin Galactic ?

The 3rd @Firefly_Space Alpha rocket has successfully placed the Victus Nox space surveillance sat into orbit after launch from Vandenberg following a 24-hr notice to complete final payload operations and mission preparations to demonstrate responsive launch. space.skyrocket.de/doc_lau/fire...