Satellite News

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: 60 Starlink satellites; Date: 29 January 2020, 1406 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. The satellites were successfully deployed into a circular 290 km altitude orbit, inclined at 53 degrees, a little over one hour after lift-off.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has scrapped its proposed military spaceplane after Boeing withdrew from the Experimental Spaceplane (XSP) programme also known as ‘Phantom Express,’ Space.com reports.

Virgin Orbit has signed an agreement with ImageSat International (ISI), Israel, to develop an end-to-end responsive space service offering focused on national security customers.

The two satellite passengers for Arianespace’s next Ariane 5 mission – scheduled for lift-off in February – are advancing through their pre-flight preparations during parallel activity in French Guiana.

SpaceX has postponed the launch of its next batch of Starlink satellites due to bad weather. The next attempt will be on 28 January.

Lift-off of an H-2A rocket with the IGS Optical 7 reconnaissance satellite aboard from Tanegashima Space Center, Japan, was scrubbed on 26 and 27 February, most recently because of a ground facility problem. A new launch date was not immediately announced.

China plans to launch more space science satellites in the coming three to four years, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

The Bartolomeo research platform, developed by Airbus for the International Space Station (ISS), has been delivered to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA. With its planned launch in March, the European-built Bartolomeo is set to become the first commercial research platform to be attached to the ISS.