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D Standard Test Methods for U. D Standard Practice for Brushmattressing Withdrawn E Terminology Relating to Conditioning Withdrawn In Thickness Withdrawn E Standard Terminology of Microscopy Withdrawn E Methods for Analysis of Phosphorus Withdrawn E e1 Standard Specification for E e1 Specification for Sulfuric Acid Withdrawn E Myriophyllum sibiricum. F Specification for Cathode Carbonates Withdrawn F Specification for Intramedullary Pins Withdrawn While deployed, Gaut also served as Air Boss.

Gaut reported to HSL in October While attached, he also served as the staff director for the Office of State, Local and Tribal Affairs. In March Capt. Gaut has accumulated approximately 2, flight hours and shipboard landings in H series aircraft. Gaut and April, his lovely bride of 9 years, reside in the Larchmont-Edgewater area of Norfolk, Virginia, with their son Jacob 3 , daughter Faith 1 and dog Romeo. It takes the right people working together toward a common goal to achieve excellence in any field.

In , Master Chief Nunley was selected for command master chief. In , she was awarded the Vice Admiral Rufus L. Taylor Award for leadership. Gregory D. Ford CVN 78 since He moved with President and Mrs. In later years, he was President and Mrs. Greg is an adjunct professor of law at the St. For over twenty five years, he has been selected annually to the Best Lawyers In America. Greg is co-trustee of the President Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation. What was it about President Gerald R.

Willard: Whether you were a Cabinet secretary or a young White House staff member, he treated all of us the same — with friendship, kindness, and his ever-present smile.

His kindness never wavered after we left the White House and moved to Palm Springs in For over 30 years, in his office, on long flights aboard Air Force One, at public events, playing a practical joke on or with! When one remembers him in that context — that he was a good man — and then examines what that meant over the course of his 93 years, what a wonderful legacy to celebrate at the commissioning of CVN As co-chairman of the commissioning committee, what have been your priorities?

The crew, the crew, and the crew — in that order! Seriously and Doug and Red feel likewise , this is a tremendous honor. Our focus from Day 1 has been to support the crew, particularly their on board quality of life. Ford has a secret weapon — and her name is Susan! Having been involved with the ship since , what moments have been most memorable? Oh, goodness — where to start! But the most memorable moment came last autumn. At Capt. What was your last conversation with President Ford?

Following the meeting, I telephoned President and Mrs. Ford and Susan to report on plans developed at the meeting for a Jan.

Tell us about the letter from President Ford after that telephone call. A few days after the call, a letter from President Ford arrived.

Included were several personal requests regarding CVN We planned his state funeral as a thematic mosaic of his extraordinary life. A special part of that mosaic was honored en route to the U. Capitol when the hearse bearing his casket paused at the World War II Memorial for a ceremonial tribute to his naval service.

The funds raised are for ship enhancements and for major events associated with the commissioning itself. CVN 78 has many conveniences you would expect with an aircraft carrier. They provide a good environment for the crew and for the air wing when on board. With millions of dollars of support from Americans. The enhancements are extensive; some cost several hundred thousand dollars, and others are relatively inexpensive. Susan and Rear Adm. John Meier oversaw the design of the spectacular bronze statue of Lt.

Jerry Ford. What aspect of the past 11 years with the ship has been your most gratifying? Guests at the commissioning will visit with crewmembers. Undoubtedly, those guests will leave bursting with pride and gratitude to the crew. Of course, you cannot help but be impressed and in awe! The capacity of the new power plant, the EMALS launchers, the advanced arresting gear systems, dual-band radar, and the countless other technological advances are astounding. Ford that encompass all the others: the patriotic commitment that the thousands of Newport News shipbuilders brought to every weld, every system, and every section of the ship; and the command climate of integrity and excellence that CO John Meier created and CO Rick McCormack has continued.

The shipbuilders and crews will always be in our thoughts and prayers — always. Congratulations to the U. The 38 stars surrounding the emblem represent President Ford as the 38th President of the United States.

The crest also contains Yale blue and white, to represent his law school. Audience members listen to remarks during the commissioning ceremony for the aircraft carrier USS George H.

Ship commissionings are among the most visible activities undertaken by the Navy League. The Navy League communicates with the general public and national leadership through placement of editorials in the mainstream press, its Sea-Air-Space Exposition it holds every year in Washington, D. The Navy League also supports long-term educational efforts such as the. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Marine Corps, and the U. Coast Guard. One of the most visible activities of the Navy League is its program of sponsoring the commissioning of new vessels into the sea services.

Federal law, ethics rules, and service regulations heavily limit the sea services in what they are allowed to do during the fitting out and commissioning of new vessels, and the Navy League has made it its mission to help out and finish the job the way it should be done. The councils are involved in a number of ways with the commissioning of a vessel, from the commissioning itself to a discreet process of fundraising to help improve the lives of the.

These include finding funds to provide shipboard enhancements to help make the ship more of a home for the young servicemen and women who will live aboard. Baldwin said the Navy League is in a unique position to help with events such as the upcoming commissioning of the Gerald R. It is important to note that taxpayer dollars do not fund ship enhancements or activities surrounding the commissioning ceremonies.

They are funded through private contributions made up of individuals and corporations that understand the sacrifices our service members undertake while at sea and ashore. Truman CVN 75 , is awarded by Adm. Philip Davidson, Commander, U. He truly lived in accordance with his values, and embodied the character traits that our nation will always require.

Aircraft Carriers are at the forefront of U. Press the purple button. Scan this page. See the U. Navy and the F in action.

Room exemplifies his legacy to the crew, many of whom were not even born when he was president. If the massive effort involved in ensuring that the Gerald R. And there are more ships coming. In the case of the Gerald R. Ford, the committee has representation from Gerald R. Ford scholarship through commissioning committee efforts. Baldwin said that Navy League members regularly meet with representatives in the Congress to explain the importance of the sea services for the peace and prosperity of the nation, and how they impact U.

John Richardson poses for a photo with fellow graduates of the United States Naval Academy during a dinner hosted by the Navy League. The report captures the amount of direct capital infused into the local economies as a result of salaries, expenditures, and contractual payment for services rendered in support of installation activities.

Manpower and payroll data are also collected for civilian personnel as well as civilian contractors working at installations located in the Hampton Roads area. The report states that there is a military-related population of , in the area, including active duty, retirees, Department of Defense civilian, and non-appropriated-fund employees and contractors.

The Navy is very supportive of its host communities in the Hampton Roads area, and the communities are supportive of the Navy, said retired Rear Adm. Hampton Roads has a large footprint for all of the armed services, including the largest concentration of Coast Guard men and women anywhere. Hampton Roads was recognized because of the tremendous support it provides to military-connected children.

A common misconception is that the Navy League mainly raises money for commissioning events. Down the hall to the entryway, the Presidential Seal welcomes visitors. Inside is a rounded room, with bulkheads covered in memorabilia. Along the left side, the very first showcase pictures a Scout holding an American Flag, and a Boy Scout Troop just beside it. An Eagle Scout emblem pops out in the display, and captions tell important details about each item, along with other images of the early life of this Scout.

Continuing around the room are exhibits on football, family, and Navy decorations, all depicting the life of this Eagle Scout, and things most important to him. Navy ships are named for historical battles, heroic sailors and Marines, or famous Americans.

Ford is the newest aircraft carrier to join the fleet. Construction began in , and the carrier was delivered to the Navy in Gerald R. Ford is scheduled for its first deployment in Navy during World War II. He was also a long-serving member of the U. House of Representatives. Most notably, he was vice president and then president of the United States. And he was an Eagle Scout. They, too, are Eagle Scouts. Bodin is the reactor controls assistant in the Engineering Department, and is inspired by President Ford.

My knowledge will always keep me grounded and ready! Ford as a person. Robert W. Crawford is a physical therapist in the Medical Department. We pushed ourselves and our limits to better our individual abilities. We never settled for the status quo and always strived for the highest goals. Ford may be considered to be the most successful Boy Scout to date, and is the only Eagle Scout to serve as the president of the United States of America.

Following his death in December of , more than Boy Scouts showed up at the memorial service. Throughout my public service and extensive travels around the country, I have seen firsthand evidence of the immeasurable worth of the basic values taught by scouting programs.

The three great principles which scouting encourages — self-discipline, teamwork and moral and patriotic values — are the building blocks of character. By working for these principles, those who belong to and support the Boy Scouts of America add greatly to the vitality of our society and to the future well-being of its people. Ford CVN 78 and her crew:. Systems, Inc. Donald and Linda Winter.

Since then, he has held increasingly responsible positions, including nuclear project manager for Los Angeles-class submarines, director of facilities, director of nuclear engineering and refueling, and director of carrier refueling and overhaul construction. He also served as director and vice president for.

Ford class, and vice president of all programs, including shipbuilding and repair, Department of Energy and commercial energy. Before being named president of Newport News Shipbuilding, Mulherin served as vice president and general manager of site operations at Newport News as part of Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding.

In , Mulherin was appointed by Gov. Could you give me a little background on the aircraft carrier building heritage of Newport News Shipbuilding? Matt Mulherin: The first aircraft carrier we delivered was in , so by my math, that is 83 years.

The submarine guys will tell you that a submarine is much more compact. Well, an aircraft carrier, even though it has some spaces like the hangar bay that are big and open, also has some very compact places — machinery spaces in the propulsion plant, weapons elevators, aircraft elevators.

It has its share of really compact spaces that also drive a lot of the challenge to build the ship. So it takes a lot of planning and a lot of thought to come through that in an efficient way. Long time. But there have been lots of them, some amazing ships when you think of names like Ranger, Yorktown, Enterprise, Hornet, Essex, Midway, Coral Sea, Forrestal — just tremendous names throughout naval history.

Aircraft carriers have been described as the most complex of all warships. As far as the present day goes, how long does the building process take and what makes it such a challenging undertaking in comparison with other classes of ships?

An aircraft carrier takes, ballpark, seven years to build from the time you start buying long-lead material, start construction, and deliver the ship, maybe as long as eight — but somewhere in that range. It has two power plants.

It has an airport, restaurants, 4, beds on the ship — just a tremendous undertaking. The Ford class is a brand new class. What are some of the things that make it different from the Nimitz class or the follow on to the Nimitz class? The ship itself, from the shape of the hull from the waterline down, is the same as the Nimitz.

But the materials are different. Thicknesses are different. And then from the waterline up, everything is new. You recognize that a sailor brings with him or her a lot of cost and a lot of shore infrastructure in dental, medical, housing — all those kinds of. So we looked at how sailors spend their day on an aircraft carrier, whether they stand watch, do maintenance work, cleaning, painting, you name it, the whole range of duties. So we really spent a lot of time thinking about how to make the ship more efficient.

And then add to that a couple of things — like the increasing diversity of the crew. So there were a lot of those kinds of things that sound simple but made us really think a lot and really push ourselves. We also wanted to recover service life margins. The Nimitzclass ships designed some 30 years ago have consumed all their weight margin. We wanted to set up Ford for 50 years of being able to bring on technologies, so we had to put the ship on a diet, take weight out, and really figure out how to set up the ship for a fifty-year life of new technologies.

There was a general view that they wanted more capability in the ship. I think of that as lethality and sortie generation rate. They wanted to fly more airplanes off the ship. They wanted the ship to be more flexible. They wanted to make it essentially an all-electric ship. They wanted to increase the service-life margins, reduce the maintenance, and have the carrier available for deployment to a larger extent.

And then we wanted to take out cost. So capability, flexibility, and affordability drove more requirements into the ship.

All those things really caused us to spend a lot of time looking at how you would most efficiently relay out the inside of a carrier. Shipbuilders at Newport News Shipbuilding use a torque wrench to tighten a stud for the tail cap on one of the four propeller shafts on Gerald R.

It has two big galleys where all of the food for the ship is cooked. On the Nimitz-class ship, there are multiple kitchens where food is cooked for sailors, officers, the air wing.

And it really creates some inefficiencies in how food is moved around the ship and how it is stored, all those kinds of things. So we really looked at how to go about designing the ship, operating it day to day, and help give a higher quality of life to the sailors.

I think we did a good job on that. On a Nimitz-class ship, the entire carriers comprised an allmale crew. If you were in your bunk and you needed to go to the shower or the bathroom, you walked down the hallway and found one. Today, we have integrated the bathrooms inside much smaller berthing areas. And now there is a locked door that is accessed by a hotel keycard.

Only the people who live in that berthing can get in there. Only the people who live in that berthing use that bathroom. I think the sailors are really reacting to it. They say that the sailors live like chiefs on the ship because of smaller berthing, those kinds of things. We really spent a lot time. We really wanted to create an aircraft carrier that people really wanted to be assigned to, because at the end of the day, quality of life on that ship is going to be better.

It sounds like you looked at everything with fresh eyes in this case. We wanted to really think about what drives our cost, identify some big game-changers we wanted to go do, and how to build the ship.

We asked ourselves — what are those big technologies and how does that afford us better ways to build it? The metric-ton island was lowered onto the nuclearpowered aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford CVN 78 Jan. The foot-long, foot-wide island was the nd lift of the nearly total lifts needed to complete the aircraft carrier. And it essentially has the ability to destroy all of the trash.

So you end up with a greener aircraft carrier, if you would. How far back did this planning go? Was this something that was ongoing even while you were beginning the build process for George H. Bush or even further? Oh, absolutely. It could be small. It could be nuclear. It could be non-nuclear. It could have catapults and arresting gear. It could just be airplanes that take off vertically and land vertically.

It could be any combination of these things. And at the end of the day, after multiple reviews of very senior people in the Navy and Department of Defense reviewing it, it came down to a big deck, nuclear aircraft carrier. We developed manufacturing assembly plans. We had a high-level view of how we wanted to manufacture, assemble this aircraft carrier before we really did any design work. I like that, and I agree that the value you get from that change is worth us going and doing all the engineering work to convince ourselves that that is the right thing to go do.

Then when we came to the Navy, we were part of that, came to that analysis of alternatives we started into our concept, arrangement, detail design — three distinct design phases for each part of the ship. Then we started pumping out drawings. Then we were planning. And these are all kind of going on at the same time. I mean every individual space had a concept first, a detail or concept, then an arrangement and then a detail.

So we went through all of that. We were pumping out drawings. We were buying material. We were doing the planning, all of those kinds of things.

I think we started that in mid And on Aug. So, it sounds like a long time, but to design and start construction of an aircraft carrier in those six years, I was down there so I can tell you they went by pretty fast. You described to a large extent the Navy and Newport News Shipbuilding working together. Different communities and different projects have a different level of involvement, from all the subject matter experts being part of the shipyard as builder, to the armed forces having their own subject matter experts.

How tight is the relationship? No, it was quite different than that. For almost every person I had, there was a counterpart in the Navy, and we spent a lot of time in design reviews, hand-over-hand reviews. There was a lot of integration. We kind of got to the point where we did a couple of things: One is, we created this electronic integrated data environment to be able to connect all of us, so we could all be looking at the same 3D product model at the same time.

So I could be sitting here at Newport News, the Navy could be sitting in Washington, the laboratories could be sitting in Pittsburgh and we could all look at the same thing. And we had a conference call going on simultaneously. So we were all talking. But there were periodically times when we had to get together. And there was nothing like the old face-to-face meeting. So we spent a lot of time either with shipbuilders driving to Washington, Navy folks driving from Washington to Newport News.

Finally, at the real peak of it, Richmond was about middle ground, so we all drove to Richmond because that was like 45 minutes to an hour drive, and we could all be there for a face-to-face meeting. So we spent a lot of time doing that as well. That lasted probably 18 months to two years.

I imagine that once the build began that there was also a pretty close relationship between the sailors once they started to come aboard and the shipbuilders?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So, two things: One is, once we started building, it was nice because we quit driving.

Everybody else had to come see us since we had the ship. But, yeah, the sailors were amazing. They were there providing us input. They could provide input. And they try to draw out all the smarts they have. I remember the air compressor guy. There were sailors down there with the air compressor vendor just trying to make sure they understood every part of it — how it operated and how it was designed and why it was designed that way — all those kind of things.

They were really trying to absorb as much knowledge from everybody as they could. They know that ship literally inside and out. Meier, the first commanding officer, set the tone and the way the ship interacted with the shipyard, and it was extremely productive and everybody worked together.

If there was a problem we identified it and we fixed it. But it was a great relationship with the crew. You spoke a little bit about reduced manning. Could you describe some of the other improvements, refinements, and new technologies that are aboard the ship? It has a bunch of them. The increased air conditioning is going to weigh something and be of some size. This ship actually has 4. The Nimitz has 4. We put in reconfigurable spaces where you can come in and bring in new technology, plug it in and bolt it down.

We really set up the ship for whatever future technologies come on board. It has a fancy new aircraft recovery system. Both of those are really designed to reduce maintenance, improve uptime — operational time — improve the way it launches airplanes — a much smoother acceleration and a smoother deceleration to give the airplanes a longer service life themselves. It has a big flat panel, you know, better from a maintenance.

Ford in a centuries-old naval traditional said to bring life and luck to the ship. So it really did help to make the ship all electric. On the Nimitz-class carrier you send steam to the catapult, steam to heat the ship, steam to cook food, and steam to the dry cleaners so they can press your clothes.

They use steam everywhere on the ship. Today, steam is kept in the propulsion plant and everything else is electrical. That really helps take manning off the ship. How difficult is it to do all these at once? But with the Ford, from top to bottom, there are whole new sets of systems going in. It was what was the readiness of that technology when it actually came to the ship.

Eventually you just have to bite the bullet. And then the John F. Kennedy, the second ship of the class, will benefit from it. Yeah, it had some risk. We all knew it at the time. Bush did and how different could it be? But at the end of the day, I think this is how the taxpayer ultimately gets the most bang for his buck. We knew the five or six technologies that were really going to challenge us. Kennedy and Enterprise and the other seven ships of the class will get all the benefits from that.

So the second ship of the class is costing significantly less to get to the same level of completion than the Gerald R. In fact, we signed a contract for the second ship of the class that is 18 percent fewer manhours. You have the most learning that you can apply. And at the end of the day, it will be the least cost. We also build the Virginia-class submarines. I will tell you the first couple of Virginia-class submarines that we built were more than the budget and took longer to build.

I think they call this the romance of shipbuilding. The romance of shipbuilding? How much weight? Yeah, substantial. Now the ship ultimately will weigh about the same because of things we brought on, like more air conditioning. A lot of these things bring on weight themselves. So we had to take out or lighten up the ship where we could.

We went to lighter steels. We looked at making the steel a little bit thinner in certain places. Are there lighter weight, higher-strength steels? We really looked at the structure and spent a lot of time driving that weight out of the structure by looking at every piece of steel and asking ourselves how we make it weigh less but still give it the same strength, the same capabilities if not more. We took out about 5 percent of the inherent weight of the ship, ultimately. We added some back in to give us some more capabilities at the end of the day.

But we really focused on how to find weight savings. Lightweight deck tile was another example. We really focused on all those kinds of things to figure out how we take weight off the ship.

I understand you had a sort of virtual reality environment where you could look at different aspects of the ship under construction. Oh, yeah. So this is all a 3D digital design. We had this integrated data environment where we could all be looking at the 3D product model. We could all be in the same space. And we would drive it from down here.

I saw something there. So everybody was looking at the exact same thing and we were having those discussions. And we did all of those things in these 3D design reviews. We had design reviews.

When we walked through that 3D product model, the Navy was buying the design of the ship. So it completely changed. A drawing is what Noah used when he built the ark. What role has she played? But Susan just has a very different relationship with shipbuilders, with the crew. She has welded. She has pulled cables. She has helped fit big steel units and used big jacks to put them in place.

She has operated a crane. She flooded the dry dock when we launched the ship. She has her own steel-toed shoes and her hard hat and all that stuff. She is just tremendous from that standpoint. She spends a lot of time with the sailors on the ship just to get to understand those folks because the relationship kind of changes. We knew Susan before there was a crew. So the relationship is changing.

And we will certainly miss. You think about it: somebody who grew up in the White House has no reason to be or at least has reason not to be down to earth, approachable, all those kind of things. And she is all of those things.

I think that was kind of who Gerald Ford was. I think Susan is not dramatically different. I think there is a lot of her father and her mother in her. And she just likes to be down there and be on the ship. Susan has kind of rewritten the book on what it means to be a sponsor. Two decommisioned Minuteman missile motors served as the first two stages of the The M55A1 first stage motor made 80 tonnes of vacuum thrust and burned for about one minute before the SR19 second stage motor took over to burn for about 66 seconds.

The 61 inch diameter payload fairing separated during the second stage burn. Northrop Grumman's own Orion 50XL and Orion 38 Pegasus motors powered the third and fourth stages, with burn times of 73 and 65 seconds, respectively. The fourth stage coasted for several minutes to apogee before its burn.

It was the 12th Minotaur 1 launch since the type began flying in , but was the first flight since November 20, Minotaur 1 has now flown six times from Vandenberg and six from Wallops. The winged, three-stage solid motor rocket was dropped from its L "Stargazer" mother aircraft at UTC as it flew Pegasus headed south toward a x km x Due to the classified nature of the mission, no live coverage of the launch was provided and no details about the satellite were released.

The goal of the flight was to demonstrate a rapid, day response to a launch call-up by the USSF. It was the first Pegasus launch since and the first from Vandenberg since One additional Pegasus vehicle currently remains in Northrop Grumman's inventory, but no mission has yet been assigned.

The company has said that more vehicles could be built if needed. The two-stage rocket placed its payloads into roughly x km x The second stage performed two burns to accelerate the roughly 7 tonne satellite into its insertion orbit for customer Sirius XM.

The stage was static fired at SLC 40 on June 2 with no payload attached to the second stage. SXM-8, the fifth non-SpaceX-owned Falcon 9 payload of the year, was inserted into a roughly x 19, km x The Maxar series satellite presumably includes upgrades provided by builder Maxar Technologies to prevent the on-orbit failure that affected SXM-7 soon after its December Falcon 9 launch. It was the th Falcon 9 Version 1. All launches have succeeded, but a st v1.

The Dragon 2 Cargo capsule carried 3. The stage was not static fired at KSC, a first for a new Falcon 9 first stage. Fengyun 4B separated into a geosynchronous transfer orbit about one-half hour later after two burns by the liquid hydrogen fueled upper stage. The roughly 5. The launch followed scrubs on May 19 and 20 caused by a LOX leak.

Tianzhou 2 weighed about It carried 4. The spacecraft docked with the space station about 6. It was the fifth CZ-7 A launch and the third by 2.

CZ-7 uses a 3. Four 2. On this flight, the strap-on boosters shut down and separated about seconds after liftoff. The first stage cut off and separated about 14 seconds later. Spacecraft seperation into a x km x The 3 hour 51 minute Starsem ST32 mission placed the The payload deployment system addded another kg of undeployed mass.

Fregat performed an orbit lowering ACS burn about 4 hours 50 minutes after launch. It was the seventh OneWeb launch and the fourth since the company emerged from its bankruptcy. The latter four OneWeb missions have launched from Vostochny. The Soyuz 2. Starlink Falcon 9 orbited 60 Starlink satellites on May 26, , completing the first orbital "shell" of the Internet satellite constellation. The Falcon 9 second stage performed two burns during its one-hour mission to insert its The stage landed at LZ-4 during that first flight.

The first stage was static fired at SLC 40 on May Such prelaunch static firings, once the norm for Falcon 9, have become rare. Engine modifications or swapouts on the stage may have prompted the test. During the past year and a half, SpaceX has honed its payload fairing recovery methods. This flight saw the 40th fairing half reflight and the first "fifth" reflight of a fairing half. The other half was on its third flight. After numerous attempts to "catch" fairing halves in giant ship-mounted nets, with spotty results, fairing halves are now recovered after parachuting into the ocean.

The tonne, three stage, hypergolic rocket ferried its 1. Haiyang "Ocean" 2 is a series of satellites designed to monitor sea surface winds, wave heights, and temperatures using microwave sensors. Liftoff took place at UTC following a scrub one day earlier. Two Aerojet Rocketdyne AJA strap-on solid rocket boosters augmented the RD core stage thrust at liftoff through the first 90 seconds of flight.

The RD fired for about before shutting down. Centaur's single RL10C liquid hydrogen fueled engine then fired for about to reach a x 4, km x The Lockheed Martin built satellite separated about 8. It was the first based on the LM series satellite bus.

The successful launch placed 52 kg Starlink satellites and two rideshare satelliites into a roughly x km x 53 deg orbit during a 1. The rideshares included the kg Capella 6 synthetic aperature radar satellite and the Tyvak optical remote sensing satellite. Total payload mass was likely more than The second stage tumbled and its 5, lbf Rutherford Vacuum engine shut down moments after it separated from the first stage, about 2. It was the third Electron failure and its second failure in eight flights.

For the first time, Electron was topped by a twin-satellite adapter system that added a cylindrical extension to its payload fairing. One satellite sat on top of the adapter while the second rode within. Plans called for the two 60 kg satellites to be deployed into a km x 50 deg orbit about Deployment would have followed a roughly 3 minute 43 second burn of the Curie powered kick stage.

Plans had also been in place for the second Electron first stage recovery experiment. Rocket Lab reported that the first stage successfully parachuted to the surfact of the Pacific Ocean. Ship recovery efforts were underway. Starlink Falcon 9 launched 60 Starlink satellites on May 9, on the Starlink mission, which jumped ahead of the yet-to-fly Starlink payload in flight order.

SpaceX has now orbited 1, Starlink satellites, though not all remain active or in orbit. B is the first Falcon 9 booster to achieve 10 flights, a long-desired SpaceX goal. The satellite triplet was named Yaogan Group 8.

A rideshare satellite or experiment named Tianqi 12 was also orbited. Starlink Falcon 9 added 60 more satellites to the Starlink constellation on May 4, It was the 13th Falcon 9 launch of the year, ten of which have been in-house Starlink missions.

The three-stage rocket placed the SAST-built satellite into a roughly 1, km x This was the first use of a 4 meter diameter payload fairing on a CZ-4C from Jiuquan. Starlink Falcon 9 orbited 60 more Starlink satellites on April 29, B first boosted the GPS mission during June It later boosted Turksat 5A and four Starlink missions.

Its most recent flight was on March 24, It was the 12th Falcon 9 launch of the year. Nine of those were in-house Starlink missions. Liftoff from Pad took place at UTC. It was the second CZ-5B flight. The boosters separated about seconds after liftoff.

The core stage burned all the way to orbit. Five secondary satellites from the U. The first two placed the stage in a km x Two subsequent burns shifted the orbit to km x It was Vega's first flight since the VV17 failure of November 17, During that flight, the AVUM stage tumbled out of control shortly after its first ignition because control cables had been improperly installed. Telemetry indicated that cables to two thrust vector control actuators had been inverted.

Commands meant for one had been routed to the other, and vice versa. The rideshare mission included the Qilu 1 and Qilu 4 remote sensing satellites along with seven smaller satellites. The three-stage rocket lifted its payload into sun synchronous orbit.

CZ-6, the first of China's all-new launch vehicle generation, debuted from the same site on September 19, CZ-6 is capable of lifting 1, kg into a km sun synchronous orbit. The liquid hydrogen-fueled triple-core rocket headed south on a trajectory consistent with a likely sun synchronous low Earth orbit. It was the 13th Delta 4 Heavy launch and 12th success. The 3 hour 51 minute Starsem ST31 mission placed the It was the sixth OneWeb launch and the third since the company emerged from its bankruptcy.

Those three OneWeb missions have launched from Vostochny. It was the second operational commercial crew flight, and the third crewed Crew Dragon mission. The first stage was static fired at LC 39A on April The satellite was inserted into a roughly 1, km x The mission of Shiyan Weixing was described by offical new reports from China to be for "space environmental surveys and experiments on related technologies".

Starlink Falcon 9 orbited 60 more Starlink satellites on April 7, Once again, no prelaunch static firing was performed. Its most recent flight was on March 11, It was the tenth Falcon 9 launch of the year. Eight of those were in-house Starlink missions. The three-stage CZ-4C Y36 used its restartable third stage to place Gaofen into a nearly km x The 3 hour 10 minute Starsem ST30 mission placed the 36 satellites, each weighing Fregat completed its first burn at 15 min 29 sec to reach a x km x Its second burn, begun at apogee 1 hour 13 minutes 40 seconds after liftoff, circularized the orbit.

Satellites deployed in six groups of four during the subsequent roughly 1. Fregat performed an orbit lowering ACS burn about 3 hours 10 minutes after launch. It was the fifth OneWeb launch. The first three took place before the company's March bankruptcy. OneWeb emerged from Chapter 11 during late November after it was sold to a group led by Bharti Global and the British government. The two subsequent OneWeb launches have now launched from Vostochny. Starlink Falcon 9 continued its recent torrid launch pace, orbiting 60 more Starlink satellites on March 24, B first boosted the GPS mission on June 30, It subsequently powered Starlinks , , and and Turksat 5A.

After performing three burns to distribute the payloads into km and km orbits at 45 degree inclination, the rocket's Curie-powered third stage transitioned itself into a Photon pathfinder satellite mission named Pathstone. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. Soyuz Rideshare Launch Russia's Soyuz 2. Liftoff from Site 31 Pad 6 took place at UTC, beginning a nearly five-hour mission that featured multiple Fregat burns to deploy satellites into three different orbits. Soyuz was painted white and blue, the first Soyuz rocket painted white since 's Apollo Soyuz Test Mission.

GK Launch Services, a subsidiary of Russia's government Roscosmos agency, coordinated the flight, which carried satellites from 18 countries. South Korea's kg CAS, a remote sensing satellite, was the primary payload.

It separated first into a roughly km x A set of four kg GRUS-1 imaging satellites from Japan separated next, about 2 hours 50 minutes after launch, into a km x The remaining satellites were placed into a km x Starlink SpaceX orbited 60 more Starlink satellites on March 14, , completing the eighth Falcon 9 launch of the year.

The Starlink campaign did not include a static firing on the pad, a practice that is becoming less common with previously flown Falcon 9 rockets. B boosted the first, unmanned Crew Dragon flight on March 2, It was a reuse record for a complete liquid propellant first stage.

At least two Space Shuttle booster segments flew 12 times, but SRBs were disassembled after each flight and not reflown in complete sets. Space Shuttle orbiter Discovery flew 39 times to orbit and back, disposing an External Tank each time. It was the 90th Falcon 9 v1. Both of the payload fairing halves used on this mission had also prevously flown, during the January 24, Transporter 1 launch.

The three-stage hypergolic propellant-fueled rocket boosted the satellites into roughly 1, km x The satellites are thought to be formation flyers that triangulate the location of radio emitters, most likely used to track naval ships.

Yaogan was orbited during February, and Yaogan during January Yaogan was launched during It was the fifth DF-5 based CZ launch of the year. The third stage performed two burns, with the second taking place about minutes after liftoff. The first CZ-7A failed during its inaugural flight on March 16, due to a failure that appeared to occur during the early moments of the second stage burn.

The true cause was only officially revealed after the second CZ-7A succeeded. When the combined first stage and boosters separated, they veered due to the unequal thrust, knocking the vehicle out of its proper attitude which led to an an explosion shortly after staging. CZ-7A uses a 3. Two YF engines produce a combined Two previous, successful CZ-7 launches, with no cryogenic third stage, took place in and Starlink SpaceX orbited 60 more Starlink satellites on March 11, The Falcon 9 second stage performed two burns to insert its The Starlink campaign included a full vehicle propellant loading rehearsal and a static test firing of the first stage at SLC 40 on March 8.

B boosted the first crewed Dragon 2 mission on May 30, All of its landings have been on drone ships downrange. Starlink On March 4, , Falcon 9 v1. The first stage recovery was an improvement on the previous, February 16, Starlink flight result, which suffered a premature Merlin 1D engine shutdown during the final seconds of its B SpaceX subsequently announced that the cause of the loss was a burn-through of one of the flexible boots located where the engine penetrates the base of the stage.

The burn-through caused overheating in the engine compartment, which caused the engine shut down and appeared to result in a fire at the end of the attempted entry burn. Meanwhile, that Starlink's ascent to orbit mission was successful. The Starlink campaign began with an aborted static fire attempt on January 29, A static firing was accomplished on January 31, but unspecified problems discovered at that time led to an extended stand-down.

The vehicle was finally rolled out for a second static firing at LC 39A on February A March 1 launch attempt was aborted at T-1 minute 24 seconds for unspecified reasons. B first flew on September 10, when it boosted the Telstar 18V mission.

The Fregat upper stage performed three burns during a multiple-hour mission to boost the 2. Several more Arktika launches are planned, aiming to create a constellation of satellites to monitor Russia's Arctic regions. The kg satellite separated into a roughly km x Two more PS4 fourth stage engine firings then lowered the orbit to roughly x km x Yaogan was orbited in January It was the fourth DF-5 based CZ launch of the year. The RD engines produced tonnes of thrust to power the nearly tonne rocket off its pad.

The Ukrainian-built first stage burned for about seconds. The shroud and interstage adapter separated at and seconds, respectively. In addition, unneeded dry mass was stripped from the first and second stages and a single-piece interstage was implemented. Falcon 9 v1. After separating, the stage flipped and performed a three-engine entry burn, but flames were visible streaming from the base of the stage after the end of the burn.

The second stage fired from to to reach a parking orbit. It restarted at for one second to reach its roughly x km x 53 deg insertion orbit. It was the first loss of a first stage in 11 months and follows 24 consecutive first stage recoveries. The robot cargo hauler spacecraft ascended to a two-day, orbit ascent to the International Space Station. Progress MS carried about 2, kg of cargo, including kg of propellant, The cargo included a repair kit for a leak on the Zvezda service module.

It was the second Russian and R-7 launch of the year. This flight jumped ahead in sequence after the Starlink launch campaign was delayed. Falcon 9's second stage performed two burns to reach the low Earth deployment orbit. The Starlinks separated at about 65 minutes after liftoff. They will ultimately move themselves to km operational orbits. Total deployed payload mass was about 15, kg.

No prelaunch static test fire was performed. Turnaround from the Turksat 5A mission was only 27 days. The second stage fired for 6 minutes 6 seconds to reach an elliptical parking orbit. Liftoff of the 2. The satellite will later raise itself into a km circular operational orbit. It was Russia's first launch of The failure occurred shortly after liftoff. After rising cleanly from its launch stand, the rocket began a pitch program, but then, possibly while accelerating through MaxQ, something happened to the front part of the rocket.

The vehicle disentegrated soon after. No payload had been announced for the flight. It was the second SQX-1 orbital attempt, following an inaugural success on July 25, On March 1, iSpace announced that an investigation had determined that a piece of foam insulation, which was designed to fall away after liftoff, had struck and retarded one of the four steering grid fins located at the base of the first stage.

The four-stage rocket, possibly based on solid rocket motors from DF or DF ballistic missiles, was 24 meters long, an increase of 3. It retained its 1. Liftoff thrust was 42 tonnes. Gross liftoff weight likely exceeded 31 tonnes. Payload capability was listed at kg to a sun synchronous orbit, 40 kg more than for the first SQX During , iSpace conducted two suborbital tests as part of its development effort.

One, which was 8. The other, which used four grid fins for atmospheric steering, was named SQX-1Z. The three-stage hypergolic propellant-fueled rocket likely boosted the satellites toward a 1, km x Yaogan entered an orbital plane that was 48 degrees east of the Yaogan group that was launched in It was the second DF-5 based CZ launch of the year. Falcon 9 Transporter 1 A Falcon 9 v1.

It was the second near-polar orbit launch by a Falcon 9 from the Cape during the past year. Prior to these flights, it had been 51 years since such a southbound launch had flown from Florida. After firing for 2 minutes 28 seconds during ascent, first stage B The second stage performed one, 5 minute 55 second burn to reach a roughly x km parking orbit.

The stage flew over Cuba and Panama and Antarctica before performing a 2-second restart over the Indian Ocean about 54 minutes 35 seconds after liftoff to reach a roughly km sun synchronous orbit. Payload included commercial and government CubeSats, microsats, and orbital transfer vehicles, along with 10 Starlink satellites.

The stage was not static test fired prior to this launch. The Falcon 9 second stage performed two burns to reach the low Earth deployment orbit. The Starlinks separated at about 64 minutes after liftoff. The second stage fired for 6 minutes 2 seconds to reach an elliptical parking orbit.