Finance

[Via Satellite 10-19-2015] International Launch Services (ILS) completed the launch of Turksat’s latest satellite, Turksat 4B, on Oct. 16 using a Proton rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Turksat 4B separated from Proton’s Breeze M upper stage approximately 9 hours and 13 minutes after liftoff. The satellite will provide telecommunications and DTH broadcasting services to...

[Via Satellite 10-16-2015] The U.S. Air Force announced Oct. 15 that it had awarded launch services contracts to United Launch Alliance (ULA) on Oct. 1 for two defense missions as part of the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) phase-1 block buy contract. The launch service contracts include launch vehicle production, mission integration and launch operations...

[Via Satellite 10-16-2015] Orbital ATK has delivered the service module for its Cygnus spacecraft to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for the next International Space Station (ISS) cargo mission, scheduled to launch on Thursday, Dec. 3. The Cygnus spacecraft will be assembled at Kennedy and launched aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas 5 rocket in...

[Via Satellite 10-15-2015] NASA has awarded contracts to Firefly Space Systems, Rocket Lab and Virgin Galactic to provide Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) for CubeSat missions to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). The awards will fund demonstration missions with dedicated SmallSat launch vehicles from each company, with a deadline of conducting the launch by April 2018....

[Via Satellite 10-15-2015] The U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) stood up its newest directorate, the Launch Systems Enterprise Directorate (SMC/LE), at Los Angeles Air Force Base on Oct. 14. Under the leadership of Claire Leon, the new directorate brings together the Launch Systems Directorate (LR) and the Rocket Systems Launch Program...

[Via Satellite 10-09-2015] Emerging small satellite launch providers are eager to speed up the production of rockets and introduce reusability in new launch systems. Speaking at the Hosted Payload and SmallSat Summit in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 8, executives from Virgin Galactic, Firefly Space Systems and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) all described...

[Via Satellite 10-09-2015] RigNet’s Telecom systems Integration (TSI) business has received a multi-million dollar contract to deliver communications systems and infrastructure for a high-voltage transmission platform in an offshore wind farm. A U.K.-based offshore contractor issued the contract award for a wind farm in the German sector of the North Sea. RigNet TSI’s scope of...

[Via Satellite 10-09-2015] United Launch Alliance (ULA) orbited a defense satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) along with 13 CubeSats on Oct. 8 using an Atlas 5 rocket. The 13 Government Rideshare Advanced Concepts Experiment (GRACE) CubeSats are comprised of nine NRO-sponsored CubeSats and four NASA-sponsored CubeSats. Manufacturers of the CubeSats consist of...

[Via Satellite 10-07-2015] The first competitive contract for the U.S. Air Force’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) program is off to a precarious start, as vehicles from both United Launch Alliance (ULA) and SpaceX are undergoing significant changes. On Sept. 30, the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) released a Request for Proposal...

[Via Satellite 10-06-2015] Spaceflight Services announced Sept. 30 that the company purchased a Falcon 9 rocket from SpaceX to conduct a launch entirely for rideshare missions. SpaceX will assist in the launch and getting the Falcon 9 into the correct position. After that, Spaceflight will deploy the satellites onboard and place them in their correct...