The APT Satellite Holdings-owned APSTAR 6E HTS communications satellite, which was placed into an initial orbit by a Chinese Long March 2C/3 (CZ-2C/3) rocket on 12 January, has reportedly run into problems. The launch, from the Xichang site, was unusual in that it...
Following a radiator leak on 15 December, Roscosmos, in agreement with NASA and other International Space Station (ISS) partners, has decided that the Soyuz MS-22 will not return to Earth with humans on it, unless there is an extreme emergency. A radiator leak on...
After a series of launch aborts and technical delays, ABL Space Systems perhaps had its own portents of doom when it decided not to live-webcast the maiden launch of its two-stage LOX (liquid oxygen)/kerosene powered RS-1 rocket. Instead, the US rocket maker and...
With much fanfare, the first ever orbital launch attempt from UK soil began with the lift-off from Newquay Airport’s horizontal spaceport facility of Boeing 747-400 “Cosmic Girl”. Beneath the wing of the carrier aircraft was the Virgin Orbit LauncherOne. Cosmic Girl...
During 2022 there were 186 orbital launch attempts. This beat 2021’s record-breaking total of 146 launches (the previous record was in 1967 with 139 launches). Thanks to the 61 launches made by SpaceX’s Falcon 9/Falcon Heavy family, the US retook the lead with 78,...
While maiden flights of new rockets are known to be risky, with a failure rate of around 40 per cent according to the Seradata SpaceTrak database, second flights are considerably less so. Nevertheless, they still have a failure rate of around 19-20 per cent. And so it...
