Launch company Virgin Orbit has joined the growing number of space companies to use a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) to fund its future development by merging with NextGen Acquisition Corp II, a SPAC that holds US$383 million in its trust account. The...
At 2213 GMT on 21 August a Soyuz 2-1B rocket lifted-off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, carrying 34 satellites for the OneWeb constellation. This launch, the fifth so far this year, takes the in-orbit satellite count to 288, out of a planned total of around...
Sutherland Spaceport in Scotland has survived an attempt by Danish billionaire Anders Povlsen and his company Wildland Ltd to halt development of one of the UK’s potential spaceport sites. A ruling published on 20 August by the Scottish Court of Session found against...
Varda Space Industries a newspace company pioneering commercial microgravity manufacturing has contracted with Rocket Lab for three of its Photon satellites. The deal announced on 11 August will see the Photon satellites act as platforms for Varda’s hardware,...
Planet, the operator of an LEO CubeSat constellation numbering over 200 units, has designated SpaceX as its “go-to-launch provider” until the end of 2025. The announcement, made on 5 August, was light on specifics but did highlight SpaceX’s reliable and low-cost...
A Vega rocket lifted-off from the European Spaceport, French Guiana, carrying the Pleiades Neo 4 reconnaissance satellite plus four small co-payloads at 0147 GMT on 17 August. The payloads were carried to sun-synchronous low Earth orbit and were sequentially deployed...
