SpaceX's Starship rocket left the launch pad this morning, but ended in a fireball a few minutes later when the first and second stages failed to separate. The combination exploded — what is humorously referred to as a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly or RUD. Nevertheless, SpaceX cheered the milestones they did achieve — getting off the launch pad and through a critical point called maximum dynamic pressure or Max Q. The FAA says it will oversee the investigation into what went wrong and determine when Starship can return to flight from a public safety perspective.
Source: spacepolicyonline.com
China on Sunday sent a new communication test satellite into orbit from the Wenchang Space Launch Site in Hainan Province.
XICHANG, March 26 (Xinhua) -- China successfully sent a new data relay satellite into orbit from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province on Wednesday. The Tianlian II-04 satellite was launched at 23:55 p.m. (Beijing Time) aboard a Long March-3B carrier rocket and entered its planned orbit.
Nasa astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams returned to Earth in a SpaceX capsule on Tuesday with a soft splashdown off Florida's coast, nine months after their faulty Boeing Starliner craft upended what was to be a week-long stay on the International Space Station.