Launch

While speaking at a JPMorgan Chase investor conference, SpaceX COO and President Gwynne Shotwell told reporters that the U.S. launch company plans to spin off its Starlink constellation business and pursue an IPO. Bloomberg first reported Shotwell’s comments Thursday at 12:48 p.m. EST — nearly the same exact time FCC Chairman Ajit Pai revealed his...

Firefly Aerospace has signed a launch agreement with Satlantis, which will use the Firefly Alpha launch vehicle to deploy its constellation of Earth Observation (EO) and remote sensing satellites starting in 2022.  Satlantis CEO Juan Hernani said that Firefly will provide cost-efficient, on-demand launch services to meet Satlantis’ stringent orbit and revisit requirements for its...

SpaceX is now accepting bookings for rideshare launches for small satellites.  Customers can now book a mission online by selecting their desired orbit, earliest launch date, and payload mass. SpaceX bills the service as a low-cost offering with schedule certainty and contract flexibility. Launches start at $1 million for 200kg to Sun-Synchronous Orbit (SSO). The company...

Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) is designing and building the first fully operational nanosatellite in Kepler Communications’ next-generation constellation of communications satellites. SFL is also helping Kepler to set up a manufacturing workflow at a new facility in Toronto where Kepler’s nanosatellites will be mass produced.  Kepler Communications, headquartered in Toronto, develops satellite communication technologies and...

Intelsat has selected Maxar Technologies to build Intelsat 40e, a next-generation geostationary communications satellite. Maxar also will integrate NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) payload with the Intelsat 40e satellite, which is scheduled to launch in 2022.  Intelsat plans to use the satellite to provide customers across North and Central America with flexible, high-throughput,...

Skyrora, a Scotland-based satellite launch firm, has completed an eco liquid-fuel rocket engine ground test. The tests, a week of static horizontal firings conducted in Fife, compared the behavior of kerosene and its eco-fuel, Ecosene. The test firings allowed Skyrora to assess its 3D-printed 3.5 kilonewton LEO engine, which will be used to power the...

Rocket Lab launched its first mission of the year — dubbed “Birds of a Feather” — on Friday at 02:56 UTC from the company’s Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. The mission carried  dedicated payload NROL-151 for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). It was the smallsat launcher’s 11th Electron launch.  Rocket Lab CEO...

Tethers Unlimited (TUI) has delivered what it calls the first mesh network inter-satellite crosslink solution for small satellites. The SWIFT-LINQ network is a software app that runs on TUI’s SWIFT flight-heritage software defined radios to connect satellite constellations, clusters, and formations together with a resilient, adaptable mesh network. The app was delivered to a confidential...

SpaceX launched its fourth set of Starlink satellites on a Falcon 9 from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, on Wednesday at 9:06 a.m. The satellites were deployed about an hour after liftoff.  “That’s gorgeous,” Starlink engineer Lauren Lyons said in Wednesday’s live webcast as the satellites separated. ...

Eutelsat Communications’ has announced that its EUTELSAT 7C satellite has entered full commercial service and is ready to support broadcast customers across Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Turkey. On Monday night, Eutelsat migrated a number of services from EUTELSAT 7A to EUTELSAT 7C, including Turkish Pay-TV platform Digiturk, Turkish national broadcaster TRT, and Globecast...