While the wiser satellite market analysts had previously predicted it about seven years ago, the market trend to build either very large communications satellites or very small ones for use in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) is only now becoming fully evident. This...
The US-based start-up Stara Space is reported (by Space Intel Report) to have ordered two 0.75kg PocketQube Unicorn 2-A picosat spacecraft from the Scotland-based Alba Space firm. The satellites are called Noor 1-A and Noor 1-B are to demonstrate low Earth orbit...
China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC), the launch provider and satellite project manager, has announced a Multiple Launch Services Agreement (MLA) with Satellogic, a satellite operator based in Argentina and Uruguay. Under the agreement, CGWIC will launch 90...
At 0030 GMT on 15 January 2019, the Iranian Space Agency (ISA) attempted to launch the AMIR KABIR-1 (PAYAM) satellite into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), utilising its three-stage Simorgh-Basir light launch vehicle. This launch is reported to have ended in failure due to an...
The construction of the FLEX – the Fluorescence Explorer spacecraft which is to study “vegetation fluorescence” to determine global photosynthetic activity – has been officially ordered. Having been originally selected in Novemer 2015 as the...
While it might be more than two years past its “use-by” date – i.e. its five-year minimum design life – Russia has keenly felt the loss of its in-orbit radio astronomy telescope, Spektr-R (Radioastron). The spacecraft, built by NPO Lavotchkin to detect gamma and X-ray...
