While the Soviet Union became famous during the 1960s and 1970s for running space event tracking ships, it also had ground based deep space communications facilities. One of these, along with its dish array, is located in Vitino, in the Saky district of...
The European Space Agency (ESA) agreed to Avio’s request in November that it take over the full operation of the Vega rocket family from Arianespace in addition to its construction duties. This suited both sides since Avio wanted more control and Arianespace was happy...
While Blue Origin’s aspirations of flying regularly have not yet come to pass given the one year hiatus after the nozzle induced-destruction of the uncrewed New Shepard NS-23 flight, it at least has now taken a step forward after a successful reflight at 1642...
A Falcon 9v1.2FT Block 5 rocket blasted off from SLC-40 pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA, at 0401 UTC Dec 19. It was carrying the carrying Starlink Group 6-34 of 23 v2 Mini satellites for the new second generation Starlink constellation. Orbital expert Jonathan...
Russia launched the Artika-M 2 (Artika-M No 2) polar weather satellite from Baiknonur launch site near Tyuratam in Kazakhstan at 0917 GMT on 16 December 2023 on a Soyuz-2-1b/Fregat. The satellite was sent into highly inclined (62.8 degrees inclination) Molniya orbit. ...
China’s national launch rate remains impressive. Its 62nd launch of the year was of the Hyperbola-1 (aka SQX-1) rocket which took place at 0700 GMT on 17 December. . The launch took place from the Jiuquan launch site in Inner Mongolia. Aboard was the Dear-1 prototype...
