The US Air Force has awarded the United Launch Alliance (ULA) the “STP 3” contract to launch the STPSat 6 spacecraft on an Atlas V 551 rocket. The contract worth US$191.1 million was awarded after a competitive tendering competition with SpaceX. The...
While European plans are to replace it with its cheaper-to-operate Ariane 6 equivalent, the expendable Ariane 5 remains the benchmark for launch reliability. The Ariane 5 rocket family has posted 80 consecutive successful launches since its last failure in December...
A four-metric-ton communications satellite, called Bulgariasat, 1 was successfully launched into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) by a Falcon 9v1.2RR (Block 3) rocket at 0918 GMT on 23 June 2017. The launch took place from the LC39A pad at Cape Canaveral,...
While the reused first stage Falcon 9v1.2 FT-RR (Block 3) launch of Bulgariasat 1 from Florida grabbed the headlines, two days later, on the other side of America, it was business as usual for SpaceX and its Falcon 9V1.2 FT-R (Block 3) rocket. It launched ten...
At 0359 GMT at 23 June a PSLV-XL rocket lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota Island, India. The launch was the 40th flight of the PSLV (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle) in total, and the 17th utilising the “XL” configuration...
The Italian Earth observation satellite PRISMA (Precursore Iperspettrale della Missione Applicativa) has been formally awarded its launch. A launch contract has been signed between the Italian Space Agency and Arianespace for the Vega launch to take place in 2018. The...
