The much-vaunted European Galileo navigation satellite constellation financed by the European Union (EU) and devised by the European Space Agency (ESA), is supposed to offer equivalent reliability and accuracy to the US GPS system. So there was more than a little...
At 1714 GMT, on 10 July 2091, an Soyuz 2-1V rocket lifted-off from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northern Russia. The mission carried four satellites into LEO, in aid of the Russian military. These four units were later identified as COSMOS (KOSMOS) 2335, 2536, 2537 and...
Launch vehicles usually have their first failure during their first ten flights, but the Avio-built Arianespace-operated Vega launch vehicle waited until its 15th flight to have its first. After what seemed to be a successful launch from Kourou in French Guiana at...
The French Space Agency CNES has ordered four 300 kg Earth observation satellites from Airbus Defence and Space (Airbus DS) under its CO3D programme, which will be launched in 2022. The terrain mapping satellites will be financed by both CNES and Airbus DS with the...
NASA has formally awarded a contract for the launch of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) mission. This will take place on a Falcon 9 rocket flying from the Kennedy Space Centre on April 2021. The launch will use a preflown reusable first stage. The...
A Soyuz 2-1B with Fregat M upper stage successfully launched at 0541 GMT on 5 July 2019 from Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s far East. The primary payload is the Russian Meteor M 2-2 meteorological satellite, however, the launcher also carried a further 32 small...
