Privacy

Last updated 23 October 2026

Picolaunch is a free spaceflight website without ads, analytics or tracking. You can use all of it without an account. This page explains the little we store, why, and how you stay in control.

Who is responsible

Picolaunch is run by Derk Weijers, who is responsible for your data. Questions or requests: [email protected].

Without an account

Launches and events you save (☆) and your display settings are stored in your own browser (local storage). They are not sent to us. Clearing your browser data removes them.

With an account

An account is optional. If you sign in, we store:

• your email address, to send you sign-in links and to identify your account;
• the launches and events you saved, and your display settings, as a backup;
• the device you are signed in on: a short name such as "Chrome on Mac" and when it was last active.

We use this only to provide the account features. We do not sell or share it, and we do not use it for marketing. We only email you when you ask for a sign-in link.

Notifications

Notifications are optional and off until you turn them on. When you do, your browser gives us the address of its push service (an endpoint) and the keys needed to send you a message. We store these, a device code (kept only as a hash), and your alert settings. We also store which launches and events this device follows, so we know what to alert you about. This is kept for the device also while you are signed in, as a fallback; while you are signed in, the items you saved in your account are used. For each followed item we keep the time and status we last told you about, to detect when it changes.

An alert contains only the name and time of a launch or event. Alerts are delivered by your browser vendor's push service (for example Google, Mozilla or Apple), which sees the alert and the address of your device. We keep a record of sent alerts for 7 days so you do not get the same one twice.

We keep the subscription until you turn notifications off, or until your browser's push service reports it gone when we next try to send you an alert. Turning notifications off deletes it, together with the followed items and the times we last told you about.

Error reports

When something breaks, on this website or on our servers, a technical error report is sent to Bugsink so we can fix it. A report from your browser contains the error, the address of the page without anything after a "?" (so never a sign-in link), and the name and version of your browser and operating system. We do not add your IP address, cookies or account to reports, and errors caused by browser extensions are not sent.

A report from our servers describes what the server was doing when the error happened. Email addresses, sign-in codes and links, and notification details are filtered out. Reports are kept only as long as we need them to fix the error.

How long we keep it

• Sign-in links and codes expire after 15 minutes and are removed within a day, whether or not they were used.
• Signed-out or expired device sessions are removed after 30 days.
• Your account and everything in it stays until you delete it.

Cookies

We set one cookie, and only when you sign in: pl_session, which keeps you signed in for up to 90 days. It is strictly necessary for the account, so there is no cookie banner. There are no advertising or analytics cookies.

Services we use

• Railway hosts the website and its database.
• Cloudflare delivers the website and protects it against abuse; it handles your IP address to do so.
• Resend sends the sign-in emails.
• Bugsink stores error reports.
• Your browser vendor's push service (for example Google, Mozilla or Apple) delivers notifications, if you turn them on.

Some of these providers may process data outside the European Union. Launch, event and news data comes from public sources (The Space Devs and Spaceflight News API); no personal data is sent to them.

Your rights

On the account page you can download all data we hold for your account (Export) and delete your account at any time. You can also email us to access, correct or delete your data. If you think we handle your data wrongly, you can complain to your data protection authority (in the Netherlands: the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens).

Changes

If this policy changes, the new version is published here with a new date.