Satellite News

Russia’s Soyuz-2.1a rocket and Soyuz MS-17 crewed spacecraft have been rolled out to their Baikonur launch pad ahead of a flight to the International Space Station (ISS), Roskosmos said.

Launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 mission to the International Space Station is now targeted for no sooner than early-to-mid November, providing additional time for SpaceX to complete hardware testing and data reviews as the company evaluates off-nominal behaviour of Falcon 9 first stage engine gas generators observed during a recent non-NASA mission launch attempt.

The launch of Russia’s next-generation GLONASS-K navigation satellite, which has been postponed several times, is now scheduled for late October, Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems said.

A ‘self-eating’ rocket engine which aims to put small payloads into orbit by burning its own structure as propellant has won financial support from the UK Government.

Exolaunch has signed a long-term launch agreement with SpaceX to secure Falcon 9 capacity for launching small satellites as part of SpaceX’s SmallSat Rideshare Program. Under the agreement, Exolaunch manifests multiple microsatellites and cubesats on Falcon 9 rideshare missions to a Sun-synchronous orbit throughout 2020 – 2021.

Spaceflight Inc. announced it signed a Multiple Launch Services Agreement (MLSA) with HawkEye 360. Under the agreement, Spaceflight will provide capacity, engineering, and mission management services to launch HawkEye 360’s Cluster 4, 5, and 6 of its radio frequency mapping satellites.

Italian in-orbit transportation company D-Orbit has announced a launch service agreement with Swedish-British small satellite manufacturer AAC Clyde Space. The contract covers launch and deployment of two Eutelsat LEO for Objects (ELO) 6U CubeSats in 2021 developed and built by AAC Clyde Space.

The P120C motor was successfully tested for the third time on 7 October at Europe’s Spaceport solid rocket motor test bench operated by the French Space Agency (CNES). This third successful test, carried out in the Ariane 6 configuration, paves the way for final qualification by the European Space Agency (ESA). The first and second tests on 16 July 2018, and 28 January 2019 were also successful.