Launch

Rocket Lab expects to resume launching its Electron rocket by the end of the year, after the company’s Electron mission failure in September. Rocket Lab reported Wednesday that its license to launch with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is still active, but Rocket Lab is still working through a review.  The Sept. 19 mission failure...

President Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese signed an agreement on Thursday providing a legal and technical framework for U.S. commercial space launch vehicles to launch from Australia. According to the White House, the Technology Safeguards Agreement (TSA) protects sensitive U.S. launch technology and data in Australia and create the potential for new space-related...

MDA selected SpaceX to launch its Chorus next-generation Earth observation constellation, planned for launch in the fourth quarter of 2025. The mission will launch on a Falcon 9 rocket, MDA announced Wednesday.  MDA CEO Mike Greenley said Chorus production is well underway. MDA announced the constellation in December 2021. It will build on the company’s...

Telespazio has revealed details of a contract with AVIO that sees continued maintenance and support for the VEGA launch pad in French Guiana. The three year contract, worth 2.7 million euros ($2.85 million) and runs until 2025, was announced Oct. 19. Telespazio will operate as the prime contractor with the support of its subsidiaries in...

SpaceX launched NASA’s Psyche mission on a Falcon Heavy mission on Friday morning, launching the spacecraft to an interplanetary transfer orbit.  The Psyche spacecraft is now headed toward the asteroid of the same name, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This is NASA’s first mission to study an asteroid that has more...

Skyrora has won a European Space Agency (ESA) contract alongside Viasat and CGI. The contract is under the Commercial Space Transportation Services program to demonstrate InRange, a space-based launch vehicle telemetry relay system which will benefit launch vehicle providers across the industry globally. The contract was announced Oct. 11. The collaboration will focus on Skyrora’s...

Intelsat signed a multi-launch deal with Relativity Space, for Relativity to launch Intelsat satellites on the Terran R rocket as early as 2026. With this agreement, Relativity now has nine signed customers for Terran R, with more than $1.8 billion in backlog. The Tuesday announcement did not specify the number of launches or the value...

The UK Space Agency (UKSA) and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) are working together to develop an in-orbit telemetry relay service to be demonstrated on the H3 launch vehicle. The relay service, InRange, will be a new in-orbit telemetry relay service for space launch vehicles using Inmarsat-Viasat’s global L-band network. The InRange service will be...

Arianespace launched a Vega mission on Sunday, launching an Earth observation satellite THEOS-2 for Thailand and weather satellite Formosat-7R/Triton for Taiwan. The mission also carried 10 additional cubesats, but Arianespace has not confirmed if two of those were successfully deployed.  The mission took off at 10:36 p.m. local time Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. ...

Spanish company PLD Space launched its suborbital Miura-1 rocket for the first time on Saturday, Oct. 7, reaching a height of 46 km. While the rocket is designed to reach an apogee of 150 km and it only reached 46 km, PLD Space said it met the primary mission objectives related to engine thrust, trajectory...