Satellite News

Rocket Lab has announced it will launch a satellite to test space junk removal technologies for Aurora Propulsion Technologies, a Finnish company dedicated to the sustainable use of space.

Rocket: Vega; Payload: Pléiades Neo 4, four auxiliary payloads; Date: 17 August 2021, 0147 UTC; Launch site: Kourou, French Guiana. The mission lasted one hour, 44 minutes and 59 seconds during which Pléiades Neo 4 separated on a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 625 km while the four auxiliary payloads separated at 551 kilometers.

China’s Chang Zheng-7 Y4 rocket, which will launch the new cargo craft of China’s space station, on Monday arrived at its launch site in southern China’s Hainan Province.

Two Soyuz-2 rockets have been sent from the Progress Space Rocket Center to the Baikonur spaceport and one of the carriers is set to deliver Russia’s new Prichal module to the International Space Station (ISS), the State Space Corporation Roskosmos announced.

The Soyuz-2.1b rocket carrying OneWeb communication satellites has been installed on the launch pad at Site 31 (Vostok) at the Baikonur cosmodrome, Russia’s Roskosmos state space agency said.

Momentus Inc., a U.S. commercial space company that plans to offer transportation and other in-space infrastructure services, announced that it has closed its business combination with Stable Road Acquisition Corp (“SRAC”), a special purpose acquisition company.

Slingshot Aerospace, Inc. announced the launch of Slingshot Beacon, the industry’s first collision avoidance collaboration and communications platform for space, which will be piloted by OneWeb, Spire Global Inc., Orbit Fab and others.

NASA and Boeing have decided to postpone the launch of Orbital Flight Test-2 to the International Space Station as teams continue work on the CST-100 Starliner propulsion system.