Launch

If all goes according to plan, Jeff Bezos will be the first of the so-called “space billionaires” to actually ride on his own rocket to space. The Blue Origin founder and owner announced Monday that he will ride as a passenger on the company’s first crewed New Shepard rocket launch, currently scheduled for July 20....

A SpaceX Dragon resupply spacecraft successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) early Saturday morning, days after SpaceX announced a deal with Axiom Space to commercialize its ISS flights.  The Dragon cargo spacecraft was berthed to the ISS at 5:09 a.m. EDT on Saturday, June 5. It was launched from Kennedy Space Center in...

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given Rocket Lab approval to resume launching, as the smallsat launcher is working through a review of its May 15 launch failure.  Rocket Lab announced Wednesday that the FAA confirmed its launch license is active, but the launcher does not plan to return to flight until its own internal...

Arianespace launched the latest batch of 36 OneWeb satellites on Friday — bringing OneWeb’s constellation to 80% of what is needed to provide initial service.  A Soyuz rocket, operated by Arianespace and its Starsem affiliate, launched the satellites from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East. The launch took off at 2:38 a.m. May...

CesiumAstro has announced plans for its first launch, Cesium Mission-1, consisting of two cubesats, in September of this year. CesiumAstro builds phased array communication payloads for airborne and in-orbit platforms.  The company said in a May 25 announcement that this first launch will serve as an on-orbit testbed for customers to run experiments on its...

SpaceX launched a batch of 60 Starlink satellites on Wednesday afternoon, and announced that Starlink service is now available in Belgium and the Netherlands. This was the 13th dedicated Starlink mission of 2021, and the fourth Starlink mission for the month of May.  The Falcon 9 rocket took off from Space Launch Complex 40 at...

The United Kingdom has taken a major step forward with its space ambitions as commercial spaceflight from the U.K. moves a significant step nearer. The U.K. government has confirmed that spaceports in the U.K. can be used in summer 2022, which is big news for the U.K. space sector. Developed with the UK Space Agency...

Delays are surfacing in planned U.S. Space Force (USSF) missions under the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program. USSF has said that its first Falcon Heavy launch is to be for the classified USSF-44 mission, which is to carry two payloads–a TETRA-1 prototype Geostationary Orbit (GEO) satellite and a larger satellite. But the launch has...

Astra has signed a multi-launch deal with Planet. Astra did not specify how many missions the deal includes, or the value of the contract, but the companies have “plans to begin launching in the near future.”  This is a vote of confidence in Astra from New Space leader Planet, and it is the company’s first...

Starfish Space and Benchmark Space Systems have reached an agreement to test on-orbit refuelling and docking capabilities during the Orbit Fab Tanker 1 mission that launches next month. This is part of an agreement between the companies announced Tuesday to collaborate on on-orbit servicing technologies.  Starfish Space is a satellite servicing company, and Benchmark provides...