On Wednesday, July 13th, the new, medium-lift, European Vega-C rocket lifted off from the European spaceport in Kourou for its inaugural flight. The rocket launched the “LARES 2” Laser Relativity satellite, built by OHB Italia for the Italian space agency [ASI]. The spherical satellite enables research into geodynamics and general relativity. The top of the […]
Featured
Mission Microwave announces an $8 million follow-on contract for SATCOM terminal upgrades
Mission Microwave has teamed with an industry leading, system integrator that is supporting a U.S. Government (USG) requirement and has won a significant terminal upgrade program contract ($8 million) that replaces Traveling Wave Tube Amplifiers (TWTA) with High Performance, Lightweight, Solid State Power Amplifiers (SSPA) in Ku- and Ka-band. Mission Microwave engineers worked with their […]
Space Systems Command’s next Industry Day to highlight Space Domain Awareness (SDA)
Space Systems Command (SSC) officials and other agencies involved in Space Domain Awareness (SDA) will meet with traditional and non-traditional space industry professionals July 28th in Colorado Springs to exchange ideas and methods to execute SDA missions at the next SSC Industry Day. To register, visit the SSC Front Door webpage. The unclassified event will […]
Lockheed Martin-developed NIRCam within NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captures a galaxy cluster as it appeared billions of years ago
NASA has released the first image of some of the earliest light in our universe, taken with an instrument that Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) designed and built. The debut photo from the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) is the first from one of the most sensitive, infrared cameras ever built to observe […]
NASA’s EMIT mission + a smallsat to ride to orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 on July 14th
NASA and SpaceX are targeting 8:44 p.m., EDT, Thursday, July 14th, to launch the agency’s next investigation to monitor climate change to the International Space Station. The mission — NASA’s Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) — will fly aboard SpaceX’s 25th commercial resupply services mission to the orbital laboratory. SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft will […]
UPDATE: A SpaceX Falcon 9 moves 46 Starlinks to orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base
SpaceX, on Sunday, July 10th, launched a Falcon 9 with a payload of 46 Starlink satellites to LEO from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The instantaneous launch window was at 6:39 p.m. PT (01:39 UTC on Monday, July 11) . The first stage booster supporting this mission […]
Virgin Galactic ‘inks’ an agreement with Aurora Flight Sciences for nexgen motherships
Virgin Galactic (NYSE: SPCE) (the “Company” or “Virgin Galactic”) has signed an agreement with Aurora Flight Sciences (“Aurora”), a Boeing company, to partner in the design and manufacturing of the Company’s next generation motherships. The mothership is the air launch carrier aircraft in Virgin Galactic’s space flight system that carries the spaceship to its release […]
SpaceX’s 53 Starlink satellites are on their way
SpaceX‘s Falcon 9 successfully launched 53 Starlink satellites to LEO from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This was the 13th flight for the Falcon 9 first stage booster supporting this mission, which previously launched Crew Demo-2, ANASIS-II, CRS-21, Transporter-1, Transporter-3, and now eight Starlink missions. The first […]
Digantara successfully launches their space-based weather monitoring system
Digantara has successfully launched the world’s first, commercial, space-based space weather monitoring system, ROBI (ROBust Integrating proton fluence meter). The system launched into LEO on June 30, 2022, at 1800 hrs, IST, from SHAR, India, on Indian Space Research Organizations’ PSLV-C53 mission. The system is the smallest, digital space weather instrument in existence and one […]
Northrop Grumman selects Airbus U.S. Space — Defense Inc. to supply 42 satellite bus platforms
Northrop Grumman Corporation (NGC) (NYSE: NOC) has selected Airbus U.S. Space & Defense Inc. as the commercial provider of satellite platforms for NGC’s proliferated-LEO constellation. Under the terms of the contract, Airbus U.S. will supply 42 satellite “bus” platforms, as well as support vehicle assembly, integration and testing. Northrop Grumman’s T1TL mesh satellite constellation will […]