SSI News

Spacewalk of the Sergeys: Two Russian cosmonauts make repairs and equipment changes to ISS
Russian Cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchcov - the two Sergeys - made an Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) - more commonly known as a spacewalk, from the airlock on the Poisk module on the International Space Station on 18 November 2020. This was the first...

GHGSat orders three further greenhouse monitoring sats from UTIAS Space Flight Laboratory
GHGSat has on 16 November contracted with fellow Canadian company Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) for its next three greenhouse gas monitoring microsatellites. GHGSat is a newspace company building a fleet of microsatellites to monitor global greenhouse gas emissions....

Space Insurance: AIG makes surprising move in turning its back on class
In what could be billed as the biggest news for the space insurance market since Swiss Re left in 2019, US insurance giant AIG (American International Group) has decided to leave the space insurance class. The firm currently provides about US$40 million of...

Vega suffers launch failure losing two payloads after anomaly following upper stage ignition
The Arianespace light-launcher Vega has suffered another launch failure, despite returning with a successful launch in September after a failure in July 2019. The latest flight, dubbed VV17, initially lifted off successfully from Kourou, French Guiana, at 0152 GMT on...

Departure of Dominic Cummings loses UK Space Industry its biggest supporter in Downing Street
Dominic Cummings, the principal adviser to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and the driving force for Brexit and the purchase of the OneWeb satellite constellation, left Number 10 Downing Street in November after his resignation was forced by what had been the UK...

ESA confirms awards for three further Copernicus missions with European manufacturers
The European Space Agency (ESA) went ahead, on 13 November, with signing three, two-satellite construction contracts with European industry. Two have been awarded to Thales Alenia Space and one to Airbus Defence and Space. These contracts cover three of the six future...

SpaceX “Crew-1” mission on behalf of NASA is launched successfully by Falcon 9 (Updated)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft (dubbed Resilience) for NASA’s commercially purchased Crew-1 mission took off for the International Space Station (ISS) at 0037 GMT on 15 November 2020. It was launched from the old Space Shuttle Pad...

ULA Atlas V launches NRO L-101
The US National Reconnaissance Office's NRO L-101 mission was launched successfully from the SLC-41 pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 2232 GMT on 13 November using a ULA Atlas V vehicle. The spacecraft, which remains secret, was launched into a circular...

Second Tiantong-1 geostationary comsat launched by Long March-3B from Xichang
The second Tiantong-1 geostationary communications satellite aka Tiantong 1-02 was launched successfully at 1559 GMT on 12 November 2020. The mission used a Long March-3B/G2 rocket from the LC2 Launch Complex at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. The satellite which...

APSTAR orders new GEO HTS satellite unit from CGWIC
Hong Kong-based satellite operator APT Satellite Company (APSTAR) announced a deal for a new satellite and launch on 10 November 2020. APSTAR signed the turnkey contract with China Great Wall Industry Corp (CGWIC) for a GEO communications satellite based on its CAST...
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