Spaceflight Daily Report, Friday 19th June 2026

Image credit: ESA

Launch of NROL-179

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 out of Vandenberg in California at 0850 UTC, or 0150 local time (PDT). The classified payload, NROL-179, was an undisclosed number of small spy satellites for the US National Reconnaissance Office, part of its "Proliferated Architecture" constellation in low Earth orbit. This was the 654th flight of the Falcon 9 and the 3rd flight of booster B1103, which performed a boostback burn and landed back at Vandenberg's Landing Zone 4. [Source: SpaceX]

Announcement of START Mission to Apophis

Tsinghua University in China have announced the Student-led Threatening Asteroid Reconnaissance of Tsinghua, or START for short, a low-cost mission that will attempt to briefly intercept asteroid Apophis from a high Earth orbit during its close approach to the planet in April 2029. Earth will cause a tidal effect on the asteroid as it passes, and START hopes to image material moving across its surface to gain a better understanding of these tidal forces. The mission is aiming to launch on a Zhuque-3 rocket in early 2028. [Source: SpaceNews]

Space Rider Drop Test

The European Space Agency have revealed that they aborted a drop-test of their prototype Space Rider uncrewed spaceplane back in May due to an anomaly. During the test, a full-scale prototype of the spacecraft was meant to be dropped from a Chinook helicopter and brought to a safe landing under its parafoil, but something went wrong and now they are planning to try again no earlier than October. The real version of the spacecraft is aiming to launch on its inaugural flight in 2028 aboard a Vega C rocket. [Source: European Spaceflight]

NASA did not publish an International Space Station blog post today.