On 9 December 2020 ESA (European Space Agency) placed an order with Italian suppliers for an reusable lifting body called Space Rider. The Space Rider has been championed by the Italian government and industry for many years as a way forward to a “space...
A Long March 11 (CZ-11) rocket successfully launched a pair of GECAM (Gravitational Wave High-energy Electromagnetic Counterpart All-Sky Monitor) satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) from the Xichang Satellite Center, China, at 2015 GMT on 9 December 2020. The two...
The Japanese Hayabusa-2 mission gave JAXA a laudable success when it returned to Earth with its asteroid samples safely on board the return capsule on 5 December. Having made trajectory corrections, the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft entered the Earth’s gravitational field at...
ESA and Thales Alenia Space signed a €482 million (US$586 million) contract to develop the Radar Observation System for Europe in L-band (ROSE-L) environmental monitoring spacecraft – as part of Europe’s Copernicus programme. ROSE-L is planned for launch in 2028. ...
The Sentinel 6A (Michael Freilich) satellite (aka Jason CS-1) was launched successfully into a Sun-synchronous orbit with its lift-off taking place at 1717 GMT on 21 November. The launch was performed by a Space X Falcon 9 from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at...
The European Space Agency (ESA) went ahead, on 13 November, with signing three, two-satellite construction contracts with European industry. Two have been awarded to Thales Alenia Space and one to Airbus Defence and Space. These contracts cover three of the six future...
