Launch

Chinese private rocket company LandSpace successfully tested an 80-ton thrust liquid oxygen-methane engine, according to its developer Friday. The engine, named TQ-12, was independently developed by LandSpace and has the third-highest thrust level among liquid oxygen-methane engines globally — and is in the same vein SpaceX’s Raptor engine and Blue Origin‘s BE-4 engine. The TQ-12 engine carried...

1045pm ET Update: About 15 minutes before the Falcon 9 rocket was due to liftoff on Wednesday evening from Florida, the launch was scrubbed. The culprit? Unfavorable upper-level winds. Fortunately, SpaceX has a back-up window that opens again at 10:30pm ET Thursday. Original post: If the weather and Falcon 9 rocket cooperate, the first batch...

The space system of military communications Blagovest will be completed in mid-July when the fourth satellite is launched, a source in the space rocket industry told TASS on Tuesday. “The Blagovest satellite will be launched on July 16 even though the launch was initially planned for the end of May. After the satellite is delivered...

Via Satellite has launched the first three episodes of On Orbit, a new bi-weekly space technology podcast that asks listeners, “What’s your business in space?” Hosted by Via Satellite Executive Editor and SATELLITE Chair Jeffrey Hill, On Orbit is unique from other space-themed podcasts as it doesn’t focus exclusively on space exploration, or the latest space industry news....

Relativity signed a Launch Services Agreement (LSA) with Spaceflight. Under the LSA, Spaceflight will manifest missions to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) on Relativity’s Terran 1 rocket, the world’s first and only entirely 3D-printed rocket. The LSA aims to position Relativity as a viable launch option for a large segment of the small satellite, microsat, and cubesat...

Eutelsat revealed that a crucial stage has been completed in the production of its EUTELSAT 7C high-power broadcast satellite, serving markets across Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Turkey. As part of the environmental testing completed in early February 2019, the all-electric EUTELSAT 7C, manufactured by Maxar Technologies, was subjected to conditions simulating the launch...

Blue Origin CEO and founder Jeff Bezos announced the company’s new lunar lander, “Blue Moon,” in a dramatic end to SATELLITE week in Washington, D.C. this week. Blue Origin’s Blue Moon vehicle will land on the Moon in 2024. This reveal aims to start a new era of building infrastructure in space. “This is an incredible...

The commercial launch market is flat at best and likely to stay that way for the next few years. This means that the number of launch services companies may contract, industry panelists said at the annual SATELLITE show in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday. “It’s a very interesting time for the industry,” Gwen Shotwell, president and...

Cloud Constellation selected LeoStella to manufacture the SpaceBelt satellite constellation. Cloud Constellation’s SpaceBelt Data Security as a Service (DSaaS) aims to secure, global managed network services and cloud data storage in space to enterprise, government and military organizations. According to the release, the SpaceBelt architecture has the distinct advantage that a constellation of only ten satellites...

NASA Launch Services Program (LSP) investigators have determined the technical root cause for the Taurus XL launch failures of NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) and Glory missions in 2009 and 2011, respectively: faulty materials provided by aluminum manufacturer, Sapa Profiles (SPI). LSP’s technical investigation led to the involvement of NASA’s Office of the Inspector General and...