Satellite News

As many as three Progress MS cargo spacecraft are planned to be launched to the ISS (International Space Station) from the Baikonur spaceport this year, Roskosmos said.

The Ariane 6 core stage and upper stage are now en route to Europe’s Spaceport. After final assembly at ArianeGroup’s Les Mureaux site and completion of all its functional acceptance tests, the core stage was taken to the French port of Le Havre.

Iran’s rocket launch on 30 December 2021, 0330 UTC from the Imam Khomeini Space Centre failed to put its three payloads into orbit after the rocket was unable to reach the required speed, a defence ministry spokesman said in remarks carried on state television.

NextGen Acquisition Corp. II announced the closing of its business combination with Vieco USA, Inc., the parent company of Virgin Orbit.

Iran said Thursday it launched a rocket with a satellite carrier bearing three research devices into space, though it’s unclear if any of the objects entered orbit around the Earth.

Rocket: Chang Zheng 3B/E; Payload: TJSW-9 [Tongxin Jishu Shiyan Weixing 9]; Date: 29 December 2021, 1643 UTC; Launch site: Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China. The communications technology test satellite was deployed into geosynchronous transfer orbit.

Rocket: Chang Zheng 2D; Payload: Tianhui 4; Date: 29 December 2021, 1113 UTC; Launch site: Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China. The cartography satellite was placed into a Sun-synchronous orbit.

China accused the United States of irresponsible and unsafe conduct in space over two close encounters between the Chinese space station and satellites operated by SpaceX. The country’s Tiangong space station had to manoeuvre to avoid colliding with one Starlink satellite in July and with another in October, according to a note submitted by Beijing to the United Nations space agency this month.

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