OQ Technology has signed an agreement with Spaceflight Inc. to procure launch capacity and provide associated launch and integration services for the company’s first batch of six satellites from their planned constellation of more than 60 spacecraft. The agreement allots launch capacity and reservation on combined rideshare and dedicated launches in a fast and agile […]
Launch
Findus Venture and Spire Global To Collaborate On The Launch Of The ADLER-2 Smallsat To Tackle Space Debris
Findus Venture GMBH (“Findus Venture”) and Spire Global, Inc. (“Spire” or the “Company”) will collaborate on their launch of the ADLER-2 satellite in Q4 2022 in a bid to tackle the growing problem of space debris. This new satellite aims to further enhance orbital debris monitoring in low earth orbit, and expand novel atmospheric sensing […]
Arianespace Soyuz Flight ST31 To Push 36 OneWeb Satellites To LEO
The next Arianespace mission is planned from Vostochny Cosmodrome with Soyuz on April 26 and is scheduled to deliver 36 satellites into orbit. By operating this fifth flight on behalf of OneWeb, Arianespace will bring the total fleet to 182 satellites in LEO. Arianespace is proud to share in the fulfillment of its customer’s ultimate […]
Accion Systems’ In-Space Propulsion System Set For June Launch With Astro Digital + Starfish Space Via SpaceX Rideshare Mission
Accion Systems has announced that two TILE 2 in-space propulsion system units will launch onboard an Astro Digital smallsat aboard the June 2021 SpaceX Falcon 9 rideshare launch. Astro Digital’s Tenzing satellite is a rideshare satellite, hosting several payloads. Also included are two TILE 2 ion electrospray propulsion systems that will test on-orbit maneuvers in […]
Blue Origin’s New Shepard Successfully Launches The NS-15 Mission
Blue Origin successfully completed their 15th consecutive mission to space and back on April 14 and conducted a series of simulations to rehearse astronaut movements and operations for future flights with customers on board. This mission marked a verification step prior to flying astronauts. Blue Origin’s Audrey Powers simulates astronaut ingress on New Shepard Mission NS-15.(April 14, 2021) For the first time, Blue Origin […]
Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-15 Flight Set For April 14
Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-15 flight is targeting liftoff on Wednesday, April 14, from Launch Site One in West Texas. The launch window opens at 8:00 AM CDT / 13:00 UTC. Building on the incremental and consecutive mission successes for the vehicle over the course of the program’s flight history, NS-15 is a verification step for the vehicle and operations prior to flying astronauts. During the mission, astronaut operational exercises will be conducted in preparation for human space flight. The primary operations will entail […]
Space & Missile Systems Center To Be Re-Designated As The USAF’s New Space Systems Command
The U.S. Space Force has released the organizational structure for the military arm’s new Space Systems Command — the Command is set to officially stand up in the summer of 2021, once all required conditions are met to re-designate the Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, California, as SSC headquarters. […]
ILS + Express Celebrate 25th Anniversary Of The 1st Combined Russian, US + European Launch
Twenty-five years ago, on April 9, 1996, a combined Russian, American and European team made space history with the first launch of a Western satellite onboard a Russian rocket. The Proton launch vehicle carried the ASTRA 1F satellite for SES of Luxembourg, to geosynchronous transfer orbit with an early morning liftoff from Baikonur Cosmodrome in […]
China Launches “Experimental” Satellite
China successfully launched an experiment satellite into planned orbit from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China’s Shanxi Province on Friday, April 9,2021. The satellite, the third of the Shiyan-6 series, was launched by a Long March-4B carrier rocket at 7:01 a.m. (Beijing Time). The satellite will be used to carry out space environment […]
SpaceX Sends 60 Starlinks Skyward
Another group of SpaceX Starlinks were sent skyward… On Wednesday, April 7 at 12:34 p.m. EDT, SpaceX launched 60 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. About eight minutes after launch, the Falcon 9 booster came back down landing on the “Of Course I Still Love […]