Satellite News

Ball Aerospace & Technologies has been awarded US$255 million by the U.S. Air Force for development and manufacturing of the Weather System Follow-on Microwave Space Vehicle 1.

ArianeGroup is to cut 2,300 jobs by 2022 as orders tumble and development of a new rocket nears its end, management said. The company said it faced tough competition from U.S. space companies whose business is “bolstered by a large volume of institutional orders.”

The first heavy-lift Angara A5V carrier rocket equipped with a cryogenic upper stage will be launched from the Vostochny space centre in Russia’s Far East in 2026, Roskosmos chief Dmitry Rogozin said.

Roskosmos will phase out the Soyuz-FG from service by the end of 2019, according to the agency’s head, Dmitry Rogozin.

According to the 21st edition of its report Satellites to be Built and Launched over the Next 10 Years, Euroconsult anticipates that 330 satellites with a mass over 50 kg will be launched on average each year by 2027 for government agencies and commercial organisations worldwide.

Rocket: Electron/Curie; Payload seven small satellites; Date: 11 November 2018, 0350 UTC; Launch site: Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand. The mission, named ‘It’s Business Time,’ marks Rocket Lab’s second successful orbital launch and deployment of customer satellites.

NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP) has certified Falcon 9 as a Category 3 launch vehicle.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on 10 November (UTC) successfully retrieved a capsule that was jettisoned from a Japanese unmanned cargo spacecraft and landed in the Pacific Ocean.