Launch

Astranis‘ first full commercial communications satellite will now launch in the spring of 2022 as a secondary payload on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket. The San Francisco-based Geostationary Orbit (GEO) small satellite connectivity provider confirmed the new plans Thursday. Astranis successfully launched a test satellite in 2018 and was originally hoping to send its first fully...

Astroscale has chosen Rocket Lab to launch its first active debris removal mission. The company announced Sept. 21 that Rocket Lab will launch Astroscale’s Active Debris Removal by Astroscale-Japan (ADRAS-J) satellite, which has been selected by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) for Phase I of its Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration Project (CRD2). This...

Spaceflight has signed a slew of new customers for rideshare and launch services, and a ground station services agreement with RBC Signals.  On Tuesday, the company released a sizable list of customers for upcoming missions, including first-time customers. Spaceflight is planning several Sherpa orbital transfer vehicle missions to support these customers in various orbits.  Spaceflight...

Arianespace successfully launched the tenth batch of OneWeb satellites on Tuesday.  A Soyuz rocket operated by Arianespace and its Starsem affiliate took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 2:07 EDT. The mission is set to last three hours and 45 minutes, with the first separation of two satellites, followed by eight separations of...

SpaceX resumed Starlink launches on Monday, launching a batch of 51 Starlink satellites to Polar Orbit, equipped with optical inter-satellite links. The Falcon 9 rocket took off at 8:55 p.m. PDT, carrying 51 Starlink satellites to space. Satellite deployment was confirmed about 26 minutes into the mission. This was the first Starlink launch since May...

Virgin Galactic has delayed its next test flight “Unity 23” with the Italian Air Force until mid-October due to a component issue.  In a statement issued Monday, Virgin Galactic said a third-party supplier notified the company of a potential manufacturing defect in a component of the flight control actuation system. Virgin Galactic does not yet...

NASA has awarded SpaceX a $152.5 million contract to launch the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U (GOES-U) mission. The total cost includes the launch service and other mission-related costs. The GOES-U mission is targeted to launch in April 2024 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  GOES-U is the fourth and final...

Sir Richard Branson’s time in space was just a few minutes, but it was a journey 25 years in the making. During Wednesday’s closing keynote at SATELLITE 2021, Branson shared with the audience that he looked to start a space business 25 years ago when he registered “Virgin Galactic” and somewhat ironically, “Virgin Intergalactic” as...

New ideas, a new focus on the consumer, and new technologies are driving growth and change in the launch segment of the space industry, speakers from leading launch providers said Thursday at SATELLITE 2021. A new type of space logistics is coming with the expansion of space exploration, said Tory Bruno, CEO of United Launch...

On July 11, nearly a minute into the rocket trip carrying Richard Branson, the British billionaire, to space, a yellow caution light appeared on the ship’s console. The craft was about twenty miles in the air above the White Sands Missile Range, in New Mexico, and climbing, travelling more than twice the speed of sound....