Launch

  GomSpace A/S and the Spanish company Aistech signed a contract for six standard nanosatellites platforms and the assembly, integration, and verification of AISTECH’s 10 Danu spacecraft, to be built on GomSpace platforms. The contract also includes other engineering services, such as pre-launch environmental testing. “This contract is a major milestone in the development and deployment...

NASA awarded Raytheon’s Intelligence, Information, and Services business $59 million for additional work on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Joint Polar Satellite System Common Ground System project (JPSS CGS). The JPSS CGS was developed by NASA for NOAA, and collects and disseminates observations from polar-orbiting weather satellites from the U.S., Europe, and Japan. The...

GomSpace Sweden signed a contract with Astrocast, a Swiss nanosatellites provider, to deliver a propulsion system for each of the 10 nanosatellites in the first orbital plane of the new Astrocast constellation. This will be the first propulsion system operating on a constellation of 3U cubsesats. The contract is a follow-on order to the delivery...

ArianeGroup launched the production line (named “B-Line”) for its P120C solid propellant booster nozzles at its Le Haillan, France site. The nozzles will be produced for the solid rocket booster P120C motor being used in future Ariane 6 and Vega-C launches. The line is designed to produce up to 25 nozzles per year, an output...

Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, has joined the board of directors of Apollo Fusion, a satellite propulsion company, after helping it secure $10 million in Series B financing from his investment firm, Greylock Partners. This Series B investment brings the total amount raised to more than $18 million for Apollo Fusion, which will use the funds...

Rocket Lab plans to develop a U.S. launch site for its Electron rocket at one of four U.S. spaceports — Cape Canaveral, Wallops Flight Facility, Pacific Spaceport Complex, and Vandenberg Air Force Base — the company announced July 10. Rocket Lab Founder and Chief Executive Peter Beck said a decision on the site, which will...

Iridium Communications has announced today an updated date for the seventh Iridium Next launch. The Iridium-7 mission is now being targeted for July 25, 2018 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with an instantaneous launch window of 4:39:26 am PDT. This updated schedule comes after SpaceX informed Iridium that more time was needed to...

Virgin Orbit has signed a memorandum of understanding with Sitael, a privately owned Italian space company, to collaborate on investments including orbital launches and future launch system evolution. Sitael previously selected Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne rocket to launch μHETsat, an electric propulsion technology demonstrator mission built for the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Italian space...

China successfully launched two remote sensing satellites for Pakistan today, according to China’s Xinhua news agency. The satellites, PRSS-1 and PakTes-1A, were launched from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China at 11:56 a.m. local time. PRSS-1 is China’s first optical remote sensing satellite sold to Pakistan. The satellite will be used for surveying land...

The Russian space agency Roscosmos is planning to issue a manufacturing contract to the Research and Production Association of Machine-Building for a new remote-sensing satellite worth $147 million, the Russian News Agency TASS reported July 6. The sensing satellite will be based on an upgraded new model of the Kondor-FKA S-band radar spacecraft and due...