American “Space infrastructure” company Loft Orbit raised US$140 million in funding in December. Its largest fundraising round to date was led by BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager and renowned for its investment in the space industry. Loft Orbital...
The Chinese telecommunications satellite Chinasat-6A (aka Sinosat 6) is likely to be declared a total loss for insurance purposes after the satellite failed to recover from the attitude control issues it has been suffering since early December. The satellite, which...
Bulgarian small satellite maker Endurosat has joined forces with Kenya’s SayarLabs who will respectively build and operate a 3U cubesat-class spacecaft TAIFA-1. TAIFA-1, meaning “one nation” from Swahili, first Kenyan 3U software-defined NanoSat. TAIFA-1 will...
China successfully launched a Long March 4C (CZ-4C) launch vehicle from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre, China, at 2355 on 25 January 2022. The vehicle was carrying the Ludi Tance-01-A (English meaning: Land Exploration-01-A) satellite which carries a L-band...
After a painstaking operation during its four weeks post-launch, engineers at NASA confirmed that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) had all its key pieces (sun shield, secondary and primary mirrors etc) properly deployed, erected and locked into place. However,...
While for the most part SpaceX Starlink satellites have proved to be reliable – or at least reliable enough to begin commercial telecommunications service – astrophysicist and space orbital analyst, Jonathan McDowell, has noted that the satellites launched on Starlink...
