Launch

Arianespace has signed an agreement to launch two satellites for Intelsat. The first launch will carry Intelsat’s Galaxy 30 satellite together with the Orbital ATK Mission Extension Vehicle 2 (MEV 2) as a stacked pair. Galaxy 30 will be the first replacement satellite for the North American Galaxy fleet and in addition to its C-band...

ViaSat announced it has begun beta service on the ViaSat 2 satellite, and affirmed plans for full commercial service launch in February. The company expect the ViaSat 2 satellite system to significantly improve speeds, reduce costs and expand the footprint of its broadband services across North America, Central America, the Caribbean, a portion of northern...

United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully completed an Atlas 5 Launch Segment Design Certification Review (DCR) recently in preparation for the launch of astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) from U.S. soil in Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft. ULA’s Atlas 5 DCR supported the Boeing ISS DCR that was held with NASA at Kennedy Space Center...

SpaceX is preparing to launch a highly classified payload for the U.S. government this week, known only as “Zuma.” Other than it being a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite, no information about the payload has been released, including which government branch procured it. Read more at Sky News 

Scientists from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, will attempt to fly a group of autonomous nanosatellites in formation for the first time this year. The satellites will launch aboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) sometime before the end of 2018, as the rocket returns to flight following...

JAXA and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries successfully launched two new Earth Observation (EO) satellites in the days before Christmas: the Global Change Observation Mission–Climate (GCOM-C) spacecraft, nicknamed Shikisai, and the Super Low Altitude Test Satellite (SLATS), nicknamed Tsubame. An H-2A F37 rocket carried both satellites into orbit on Dec. 23 from JAXA’s Tanegashima Space Center. JAXA...

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has announced an official launch date — January 10 — for its Cartosat 2 satellite and 31 other secondary payloads. This is the first Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) launch since a mission failure in August, when a heat shield fairing malfunction prevented the rocket from deploying its payload...

Russia promptly lost contact with Angola’s first telecommunications satellite after launching it from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Dec. 26. This comes just weeks after a similar incident in November, when Russia lost contact with a weather satellite it launched from a new complex in Vostochny. The question now is: do these subsequent failures...

SpaceX has officially reached the midway point of the Iridium Next launch campaign, lofting an additional 10 satellites for the constellation in the evening hours of Dec. 22. Illuminated against an inky dusk backdrop, the Falcon 9’s first stage separation and secondary stage ignition left a bright streak in its wake as it crossed the...

Blue Origin announced that its New Shepard vehicle flew again for the seventh time on Dec. 12. Known as Mission 7 (M7), the flight featured the company’s next-generation booster and the first flight of Crew Capsule 2.0. While Blue Origin’s primary objective was to progress testing this new system for human spaceflight, it also sent 12...