The United Arab Emirates (UAE) joined the space race in spectacular style. With the help of a Japanese Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Launch Services operated H2A-202 (SRB-A3) rocket. Its Hope space probe (Misabar Al’amal) was launched to Mars at 2158 GMT on...
The UK Ministry of Defence has formally ordered (on 19 July) an interim communications satellite, Skynet 6A, from Airbus Defence and Space (Airbus DS) for use in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO). The contract is valued at GBP£500 million (US$628.5 million). The...
On 13 July 2020 the Kibo RMS (robot arm) removed the Nanoracks NRCSD-18 deployer from the Kibo airlock which then ejected the DeMi cubesat at 1340 GMT and the TechEdSat 10 cubesat at 1655 GMT. Following on from an earlier spacewalk on 1 July, on 16 July, two...
The NRO L-129 mission was successfully launched at 1346 GMT on Wednesday 15 July using a Minotaur IV launch vehicle from the Wallops Island launch (aka MARS) in Virginia, USA. The mission consists of four satellites which are owned by the National Reconnaissance...
While it might be premature to say this, it appears to be the “half-time” point in the Covid-19 pandemic. Those countries that have managed to control the outbreak – even those with very bad starts (e.g. Italy, Spain, France, UK) – are starting...
China attempted the maiden launch of the Kuaizhou 11 solid fuelled launch vehicle at 0417 GMT on 10 July from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The launch appears to have suffered a third-stage ignition failure and the assembly fell back to a fiery re-entry without...
