by David Todd | Jan 1, 2015 | China, commercial launch services, Launches, Russia, Satellites, Soyuz
The dying days of a year are traditionally the time when Russia and China launch a number of payloads into orbit while Western nations are distracted as they celebrate their Christmas festival. And this year was no exception. On 23 December at 0557 GMT from the...
by David Todd | Dec 19, 2014 | commercial launch services, Russia, Seradata News, Technology
While the reliability of Orbital Sciences’ Antares rocket’s ancient (if refurbished) NK-33/AJ-26 engines were found wanting, Orbital Sciences Corp has now decided to change these engines in favour of another rocket engine. According to Aviation Week, the...
by David Todd | Dec 16, 2014 | Commercial human spaceflight, commercial launch services, exploration, NASA, Science, SLS
While it occupies just a small portion of the spending in the trillion dollar budget of the US Government, as that was passed by Congress and the US Senate, NASA unexpectedly found itself a winner at this year’s throw of the dice. The Administration has been...
by David Todd | Dec 15, 2014 | commercial launch services, ESA, Satellites
While the agreement to drop Ariane 5 ME in favour of Ariane 6 stole the headlines, the ministerial meeting of the European Space Agency showed some more subtle changes in the national funding strategies as well. Having avoided the huge development costs of the...
by David Todd | Dec 10, 2014 | Add category, commercial launch services, NASA, Seradata News
After its Antares launch disaster, Orbital Sciences Corporation has purchased an Atlas V 401 launch plus option from the United Launch Alliance, in order to fulfil its contract obligations to NASA to carry cargo to the international space station. The...
by David Todd | Dec 9, 2014 | commercial launch services, Launches, Satellites
While its further development has now been stopped, the Ariane 5 ECA launch vehicle still serves Arianespace well. It has successfully launched the DirecTV-14 and GSAT-16 communications satellites for DirecTV and ISRO respectively from its launch site in Kourou,...
