Launch

Over the last decade, Turkey has invested in its spacefaring ambitions, resulting in the strengthening of its indigenous space-related know-how and its position within the global arena. In 2011 and 2012, RASAT and Göktürk 2 were launched respectively, placing the two Earth Observation (EO) satellites designed and developed in Turkey into orbit. With the capacity...

Plans for the U.S. Space Force to award two launch services contracts for its next batch of national security space missions this summer remain on track, the Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) commander said June 17. The Space Force released a request for proposals for Phase 2 of its launch services procurement program in...

Rocket Lab signed a launch agreement with the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for two back-to-back dedicated small satellite missions aboard an Electron launch vehicle. The missions were awarded through the NRO’s Rapid Acquisition of a Small Rocket (RASR) contract, an initiative that enables the agency to explore new opportunities for launching small satellites through...

The United States and United Kingdom have signed an agreement paving the way for U.S. companies to launch from U.K. spaceports. According to the U.S. Department of State, the agreement establishes technical safeguards for U.S. launches from the U.K., and also sets standards for how sensitive U.S. technology should be used for satellite and rocket...

Spaceflight revealed Wednesday that it will launch two rideshare payloads aboard SpaceX’s tenth Starlink mission, marking the first SpaceX Starlink mission that will be accompanied by Spaceflight rideshare payloads. Spaceflight’s mission, which it has dubbed SXRS-1 to signify its first rideshare with Starlink, will include two Earth Observation (EO) microsatellites for Spaceflight’s customer BlackSky. In...

Momentus and Polish space company SatRevolution have reached an orbital deployment contract. Momentus announced Tuesday that it will launch SatRevolution’s 3U cubesat, called LabSat, on-board its Vigoride orbit transfer vehicle, to a Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO) on a dedicated SpaceX Falcon-9 Rideshare mission in December 2020. Vigoride will then transport the cubesat to a higher drop...

Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket was on the launch pad at Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand, just days away from the “Don’t Stop Me Now” mission, when the small satellite launcher abruptly had to shut down after the New Zealand government called for most businesses to close to combat the COVID-19 pandemic on March 23....

SpaceX successfully lofted three high-resolution imaging SkySats from Planet and a batch of its own Starlink communications satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket this past weekend on June 13. The California launch company successfully deployed Planet’s SkySats 16, 17 and 18 to a drop-off orbit of 205 x 380 km at a 53 degree inclination....

Rocket Lab’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” mission, which was delayed by COVID-19 restrictions in New Zealand, lived up to its name and successfully took off from Launch Complex 1 on Saturday at 5:12 a.m. UTC.  The 12th Electron rocket launch lifted payloads from NASA, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), and the University of New South...

The U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center’s (SMC) Global Positioning System (GPS) III program reached a major milestone with the successful core mate of GPS III Space Vehicle 08 at Lockheed Martin’s GPS III Processing Facility in Waterton, Colorado on April 15. SMC also announced that the the space vehicle was named in...