Launch

Measat’s latest satellite, Measat-3D has now entered commercial service, the company confirmed July 22. The satellite has a planned lifespan of more than 18 years, carries C-band and Ku-band payloads for video and DTH services and a high-throughput multiple spot beam Ka-band payload optimized to deliver high-speed broadband internet for Malaysia. Interestingly, the satellite also hosts...

Isar Aerospace has received approval from French Space Agency CNES to operate its rockets from the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) in French Guiana. This is a major milestone for the German launcher, and could make it it the first privately-funded launch company to fly satellites from CSG. By securing another launch site in Europe and...

Eutelsat’s Konnect VHTS satellite is on the way to French Guiana ahead of a launch planned for Sept. 6. Arianespace will launch the satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space, on an Ariane 5 rocket from the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana.    Thursday’s news secures a planned launch date for the highly anticipated satellite that...

Latin American company All2Space has signed an exclusive launch agreement with Vaya Space to launch its constellation.  Vaya Space, formerly Rocket Crafters, is a smallsat launcher in development based in Florida, with a Brazilian subsidiary. The company developed a vortex-hybrid engine rocket, Dauntless, and performed a suborbital test earlier this year from California. It plans...

NASA and the Russian space agency Roscosmos have reached an agreement to resume integrated crews on U.S. crew spacecraft and the Russian Soyuz to transport crew to and from the International Space Station (ISS). The news broke Friday, the same day that Russia removed Roscomos Director General Dmitry Rogozin from his post, installing Yury Borisov,...

Skyrora has opened a large new manufacturing and production facility in the U.K., which it claims to be the largest of its kind in the nation. This new facility in Cumbernauld, Scotland, announced Thursday, allows the company to concentrate its launch development practices in custom-built domestic facilities. Skyrora has already commenced production of two Skyrora...

Northrop Grumman has won a sole source, $22 million cost-plus-fixed-fee undefinitized contract through February 2026 from U.S. Space Force’s Space Systems Command for the Rapid On-orbit Space Technology Evaluation Ring (ROOSTER) effort, which is to provide low-cost and frequent deployment of small satellites to geostationary orbit for national security missions. The contract award said that...

On Wednesday, the European Space Agency (ESA) executed a successful first launch of the Vega C, which it says will expand launch access and flexibility. Arianespace is now preparing to start commercial service with the rocket, and said it has a backlog of seven launches and 10 auxiliary payloads. The debut launch took place on...

Rocket Lab launched NROL-162, the first of a pair of back-to-back missions for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) early Wednesday.  A Rocket Lab Electron rocket launched from Pad A at Rocket Lab Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 06:30 UTC, carrying a classified national security payload. Rocket Lab and the NRO confirmed successful payload...

Terran Orbital reported Friday that it successfully completed the first TCM burn (TCM-1) on the NASA Artemis program’s CAPSTONE space vehicle. CAPSTONE uses the gravity of the Sun instead of fuel to transfer its orbit to the Moon using a process known as a highly efficient ballistic lunar transfer. Terran Orbital and Advanced Space are...