SpaceX was all ready to launch on Monday, but unfortunately uncooperative weather prevented sending up another 60 Starlink satellites. SpaceX will announce a new target launch date once confirmed, and Falcon 9 will lift off from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Following stage separation, SpaceX will land Falcon 9’s first […]
Launch
USSF SMC’s Lockheed Martin Built GPS III Encapsulated For Sep. 29 Launch
The U.S. Space Force Space and Missile Systems Center’s Lockheed Martin-built GPS III Space Vehicle 04 (GPS III SV04) satellite was encapsulated within a SpaceX payload fairing at Astrotech Space Operations Florida facility on September 21 in preparation for its upcoming launch on September 29 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida — the 15-minute […]
USSF’s SMC To Reuse SpaceX Launch Vehicles for GPS Satellites
The U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center Launch Enterprise and Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) recently signed a contract modification to reuse a Falcon 9 first-stage booster – for the first time on a National Security Space Launch mission – starting with the fifth Global Positioning System (GPS)-III satellite, scheduled to launch next […]
Blue Origin’s New Shepard Historic Mission Scrubbed
The attempt at an historic launch by Blue Origin — this one being the 13th New Shepard mission and the 7th consecutive flight for this particular vehicle (a record) — has proven to be a no go. The technicians detected a potential issue with the power supply to the experiments that are aboard the launch vehicle. […]
Exolaunch Managing The Launch Of Four Spire Lemur-Class Smallsats
Exolaunch is arranging the launch and providing technical mission management for four of Spire Global’s Lemur-class 3U cubesats aboard a Soyuz rocket mission scheduled for September 28. Spire Global operates the world’s largest commercial constellation of smallsats making radio occultation measurements, alongside other Earth Observations (EO) that serve the maritime, weather and aviation industries. To date, […]
ULA Ready to Roll with NROL-44
Weather permitting it appears that everything is progressing toward the launch of ULA‘s Delta IV Heavy launch that will carry the NROL-44 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. The mission is set to lift off on Saturday, September 26 from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Wednesday’s forecast shows a 60 percent chance of favorable weather conditions for […]
Launch Upcoming For Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-13 Mission
Blue Origin’s next New Shepard mission (NS-13) is currently targeting liftoff for Thursday, September 24, at 10:00 am CDT / 15:00 UTC — current weather conditions are favorable. This will be the 13th New Shepard mission and the 7th consecutive flight for this particular vehicle (a record), demonstrating its operational reusability. New Shepard will fly […]
Momentus Signs Smallsat Launch Agreements With Pixxel + GP Advanced Projects
Momentus Inc. (“Momentus” or the “Company”) and Pixxel have executed a service agreement for delivering Pixxel’s second smallsat to SSO orbit in December 2021 onboard a SpaceX Falcon-9 launch, as well as options to fly again in 2022. Pixxel is building a constellation of Earth imaging smallsats that can provide real-time remote sensing data across […]
Arianespace Resumes OneWeb’s Constellation’s Deployment
Getting back to their original plans are Arianespace and OneWeb which will resume launch operations to continue the deployment of the OneWeb constellation. According to the amended launch contract with OneWeb, the London-based communications company, Arianespace will perform 16 more Soyuz launches from three spaceports (Kourou, Baikonur and Vostochny) beginning in late 2020 and continuing […]
China Launches Ocean Monitoring Satellite
On October 21, China sent a new ocean-monitoring satellite into orbit from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. A Long March-4B rocket carrying the Haiyang-2C (HY-2C) satellite took off at 1:40 p.m. (Beijing Time), according to the launch center. The HY-2C, the country’s third ocean dynamic environment satellite, can provide all-weather and round-the-clock […]