Ingenuity took off at Wright Brothers Field – the same spot where the helicopter took off and touched back down on all the other flights – but it landed elsewhere, which is another first for the rotorcraft. Ingenuity climbed to 16 feet (5 meters), then retraced its course from flight four, heading south 423 feet (129 meters). But instead of turning around and heading back, it actually climbed to a new height record of 33 feet (10 meters), where it took some color (as well as black-and-white) images of the area. After a total flight time of about 110 seconds, Ingenuity landed, completing its first one-way trip.
Atop this ULA Atlas V rocket will be Perseverance, a car-sized rover which will explore an ancient river delta on Mars. Armed with a suite of six scientific instruments, Perseverance will primarily hunt for clues to the planet's distant past, and hopefully uncover signs of ancient life and habitability. The rover also carries an experiment that'll convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, a box-sized helicopter named Ingenuity that'll demonstrate powered flight on Mars, and a system that enables the rover to leave behind samples for later retrieval and return to Earth during NASA and ESA's ambitious sample return mission later this decade.
Heliocentric N/ARide-share launch of 8 satellites to sun-synchronous orbit. Details TBD.
The Yaogan 50-02 is a Chinese military “remote sensing” satellite of unknown purposes.
A batch of 29 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
A batch of 25 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
A pair of Chinese satellites reported to be for "Earth observation technological testing and validation" purposes. Actual usage not known.
A batch of 9 Low Earth Orbit communication satellites for the Chinese state owned SatNet constellation operated by the China Satellite Network Group.…
Firefly Alpha's Flight 7 is a test flight and return-To-Flight for the launch vehicle after its April 2025 launch failure. It will test and validate …
EchoStar 25 is a direct broadcast satellite, built on the proven Maxar 1300 series platform, which will deliver content across North America. It will…
A batch of 25 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
Note: Payload and customer identities were not publicly announced. 4th of the BlackSky Gen-3 high resolution Earth-imaging satellites.