Launch

Virgin Galactic shares dropped 17% on Monday after a test flight over the weekend failed to reach space when the vehicle’s rocket motors did not ignite.  The Dec. 12 test was a powered flight for SpaceShipTwo Unity, Virgin Galactic’s suborbital vehicle which is designed to carry space tourists. When SpaceShipTwo was released from its carrier...

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched SiriusXM‘s latest satellite over the weekend. On Sunday, Dec. 13, a Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 12:30 ET carrying SXM-7. The payload was deployed about 31 minutes after liftoff. This was SpaceX’s 25th launch of 2020. The first stage booster...

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Heavy rocket launched the NROL-44 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) on Dec. 10. The Delta IV Heavy took off from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 8:09 p.m. ET on Thursday evening. The launch was successfully after a series...

On Wednesday, SpaceX executed its most extensive test of its Starship rocket to date, demonstrating a landing flip maneuver before the rocket returned to the launch pad in a fiery crash.  In the Dec. 9 high altitude test, the Starship prototype (SN8) took off from SpaceX’s launch pad in Cameron County, Texas at 5:45 p.m....

Inmarsat confirmed Thursday that its GX5 Geostationary Orbit (GEO) satellite entered commercial service. This is the company’s most powerful GEO satellite to date, and its fourteenth satellite currently in service. The satellite provides additional capacity to Europe and the Middle East on the i Global Xpress (GX) Ka-band satellite broadband service. The satellite was launched...

TriSept has agreed to purchase a full mission on a future Terran 1, Relativity Space’s 3D-printed rocket in development, the companies announced Thursday. This is TriSept’s first deal with Relativity Space. The launch will take place as early as 2022 from one of Relativity’s launch sites at Cape Canaveral in Florida or Vandenberg Air Force...

Arianespace revealed Monday that it signed a contract with Airbus to launch four optical observation satellites for the Composante Optique 3D (CO3D) constellation. These Earth Observation (EO) satellites are being developed with the French Space Agency (CNES), and will be launched on a Vega C rocket in 2023 from the Guiana Space Center. The CO3D...

A SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft autonomously docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Monday afternoon at about 1:40 p.m. ET. Dragon carried with it the first commercially owned and operated airlock on the space station, the Nanoracks Bishop Airlock. Bishop can deploy free-flying payloads such as cubesats and externally-mounted payloads, and host small payloads for...

Momentus and Australian rocket company Gilmour Space Technologies have reached a multi-million dollar agreement for launch and orbital transport services, the companies announced Nov. 30. Gilmour Space has the option to book up to three missions with Momentus orbital transfer vehicle Vigoride between 2023-2025, and Momentus has agreed to purchase one dedicated launch on an...

The chief operating officer of Jeff Bezos’ private space company Blue Origin is leaving, the company confirmed to CNBC on Wednesday. Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith wrote in an email to the company that COO Terry Benedict’s last day will be Friday, Dec. 4, people familiar with the matter told CNBC. While those people said Smith did...