Satellite News

SpaceX will launch another big batch of Starlink satellites into orbit for the company’s burgeoning megaconstellation today (Sept. 17), and you can watch the action live online.

NASA shared a fun video of Hilary Swank’s visit to mission control in preparation for her role as an astronaut in Netflix’s new space series “Away.”

The new moon occurs Thursday, Sept. 17, at 7 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), a day before Mercury reaches its highest point in the evening sky for the rest of the year.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) plans to end operation of the Atlas V launch vehicle with the Russian RD-180 engine in the mid-2020s, Julie Arnold, an ULA spokeswoman, was quoted as saying.

The sixth Lockheed Martin-built Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF-6) protected communications satellite successfully completed in-orbit tests on 27 August 2020.

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. announced it will begin offering data services to characterise spacecraft in Geosynchronous Orbit (GEO). This has great value for Space Domain Awareness (SDA) and will be offered to government and commercial organisations internationally, the company said.

The unmanned Hayabusa2 probe will explore the asteroid 1998KY26 after completing its current mission of delivering a capsule believed to be containing samples of sand from the asteroid Ryugu to Earth, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said.

By the end of 2020, Russia’s state space corporation Roskosmos will sign a contract to design the Nuklon space complex, which includes a space tug fitted with a nuclear reactor, said Alexander Bloshenko, the director of advanced programmes and science at Roskosmos.