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SpaceX has successfully launched the EchoStar 105/SES 11 satellite from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After deploying the satellite to Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) yesterday evening, SpaceX completed another smooth re-landing of the rocket’s first stage on one of the company’s drone ships off the coast of Cape Canaveral. Built by Airbus, EchoStar 105/SES...

SpaceX successfully delivered 10 additional Iridium Next satellites to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) approximately one hour after its Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Oct. 9. With two successful launches already completed this year, this third batch of 10 satellites brings the total number of Iridium Next satellites...

United Launch Alliance (ULA) scrubbed its third attempt to launch a spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) early Saturday morning after weather troubles delayed the first two scheduled launches. The company cited a malfunction of a telemetry transmitter on the rocket during the countdown. It has not yet announced a new launch date...

Rideshare broker Spaceflight announced its SSO-A Integrated Payload Stack has successfully completed a modal survey of the primary structure. The series of tests, conducted by a third party, subjected Spaceflight’s nearly 20-foot satellite rideshare structure to low-level vibration to excite the core structure. Results from these tests are used to correlate the detailed finite element...

In 1955, the Soviet government made public its plans to launch the first ever satellite to take photos of the Earth’s surface from space. Two years later on Oct. 4, 1957, the Simplest Satellite, as it was called (or Sputnik 1), launched into orbit and proved that space was not an inaccessible frontier for mankind....

World View, which plans to offer services such as Earth Observation (EO) from the stratosphere using high altitude balloons, has successfully completed its first Stratollite launch from its Tuscon, Arizona headquarters. According to the Arizona Daily Star, The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) recently granted the company a certificate of authorization to launch from Spaceport Tuscon,...

Arianespace successfully completed a mission on Sept. 29 that delivered two satellites to Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO): Intelsat 37e for operator Intelsat and BSAT 4a for Japan’s Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (BSAT). An Ariane 5 heavy-lift launch vehicle carried the satellites into orbit from the ELA-3 launch zone in French Guiana. Intelsat 37e was deployed...

Elon Musk has been very vocal about his ambitions to conduct human spaceflight missions to Mars. To achieve the cost savings necessary to turn his plans into a reality, SpaceX intends to consolidate its vehicle lineup — Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Dragon — into a single, fully reusable spacecraft. The vehicle doesn’t have an...

[View the story “ILS Proton Successfully Orbits AsiaSat 9 Satellite” on Storify]

Thales Alenia Space and Arianespace have signed a launch contract for two Cosmo-SkyMed Second-Generation (CSG) satellites manufactured for the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the Italian Ministry of Defense. The CSG satellites are Earth Observation (EO) spacecraft that will be launched in 2018 by Soyuz and Vega C launchers from the Guiana Space Center in...