A selection of newspace business for Rocket Lab, Blue Canyon Technologies and Astroscale
Rocket Lab Rocket Lab has received a launch contract from NASA to carry the CAPSTONE, 12U CubeSat, to the Moon. The CAPSTONE satellite being built by Tyvak and Advanced Space, will be placed into a "near-rectilinear halo orbit" around the Moon. This is the orbit that...
Launch services company Spaceflight Inc. is to be bought by Japanese companies
Earlier in February 2020, American launch services provider Spaceflight Inc. - part of Spaceflight Industries Inc - announced that it would be sold to a pair of Japanese companies. The companies buying Spaceflight are; Mitsui & Co., Ltd, and Yamasa Co., Ltd....
Cygnus NG-13 is launched on Antares rocket
The Cygnus NG-13, which is also named Robert Lawrence Jr after the black astronaut who was unfortunately killed in a 1967 air crash before he got to fly into space, was launched by an Antares 230+ rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (MARS) located at...
UK Cabinet Reshuffle: UK loses yet another space minister…and its main finance minister after Machiavellian moves
The UK government led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson was being reconstructed via a cabinet reshuffle in February. While many of the moves had been telegraphed previously - mainly to the Daily Telegraph (the main Conservative broadsheet newspaper) - other newspapers...
Solar Orbiter (SolO) on its way after successful Atlas V launch
The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter (SolO) mission has been sent on its way by an Atlas V 411 rocket launch. The launch took place at 0403 GMT from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The Centaur stage of the United Launch Alliance rocket put the SolO spacecraft into a...
Another Simorgh launch goes wrong for Iran losing Zafar satellite
Nasaspaceflight.com reports that the Safir 2A Simorgh launch vehicle has suffered another launch failure. The launch is reported to have taken place at 1545 GMT from the Imam Khomeini Spaceport in the Semnan Province of Iran. The initial part of the launch went well...
Japan’s H-IIA rocket launches IGS Optical 7A satellite
Japan successfully launched the IGS Optical 7A reconnaissance satellite on a H-IIA 202 (H2A 202) launch vehicle from Tanegashima Space Centre at 0134 GMT on 9 February. The launch had been previously delayed from 27 January due to Nitrogen gas leak in the ground...
Arianespace completes first fully-stocked launch carrying 34 satellites for OneWeb
Launching at 2142 GMT, 6 February 2020, a Soyuz 2-1B rocket has carried 34 OneWeb satellites to LEO. The launch which, lifted-off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, was part of the launch contract signed between OneWeb and Arianespace. This mission utilising...
On a sadder note: Rest in Peace Kirk Douglas
The venerable actor Kirk Douglas has finally passed away in February 2020 away at the age of 103. While the acclaimed US actor, who was this son of a Russian Jewish emigre, did not make many space or science fiction films - only the unmemorable Saturn 3 (1980) and the...
Roscosmos/NASA/ESA crew depart ISS and land safely on Soyuz MS-13
Soyuz MS-13 undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) Poisk module at 0550 GMT on 6 February 2019. On board were Cosmonaut Aleksandr Skvortsov, commanding Soyuz MS-13 along with NASA's Christina Koch and ESA'S Luca Parmitano. Soyuz MS-13 fired deorbit engine...
