China places four satellites into LEO
China successfully launched a Long March 2D (CZ-2D) vehicle from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, China, at 0303 GMT on 11 June 2021. The vehicle was carrying four satellites: BEIJING 3, a commercial earth observation satellite; HAISI 2, a civil SAR remote sensing...
ESA joins the Venus planetary science train with selection of fifth Medium-class mission
ESA decided the winner of its fifth "Medium-class" Cosmic Vision competition on 10 June. Out of the two finalists the Venus-oriented "EnVision" orbiter won out over the gamma-ray burst studying "THESEUS". The initial call for mission concepts was announced in 2016 and...
UKSA gets new CEO
The UK Space Agency announced on 9 June that it had appointed Dr Paul Bate as its new CEO. He will take over from the current CEO, Dr Graham Turnock, from 6 September 2021. Bate has a PhD in particle physics, but little evident experience with space. As a civil...
Two newspace companies secure Series B funding to continue growth (Updated)
Kepler Communications announced the closure of a Series B round of financing valued at US$60 million on 9 June. This amount takes the total funding raised by Kepler to over US$90 million. Kepler is a newspace company building a CubeSat constellation to provide...
Relativity Space raises US$650 million to develop larger, reusable, launch vehicle
Prospective American launch provider Relativity Space has announced that it has completed a Series E funding round raising US$650 million. It follows on from its previous sizeable Series D funding round which raised US$500 million in November last year, This round was...
Suborbital ventures on the threshold to space
Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is to fly on the first crewed mission of the New Shepard, which is scheduled to make its historic suborbital journey on 20 July. He will be joined by his younger brother, Mark, and the winner of an online auction for a third seat on the...
Upcoming small launch provider Astra to buy electric propulsion developer Apollo Fusion
Newspace company Astra, which is developing a small launch vehicle, has revealed that it intends to purchase fellow-newspace firm and developer of satellite electric propulsion, Apollo Fusion. The announcement made on 7 June outlines Astra's intention to acquire...
SpaceX launches SXM-8 toward GEO
SpaceX conducted a mission from Cape Canaveral, Florida, launching a customer satellite into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). The launch took place at 0426 GMT on 6 June, and carried the 7,000 kg SXM-8 satellite for Sirius XM. The satellite will now propel itself...
Cosmonauts ready the ISS for a new module
Cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Pyotr Dubrov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, completed their spacewalk to continue the decommissioning of the Pirs docking compartment. The Expedition 65 Flight Engineers opened the hatch of the Poisk docking compartment on 2 June...
SpaceX launches resupply mission to the ISS carrying first batch of new solar arrays (Updated)
SpaceX successfully launched the Dragon CRS 22 resupply mission to the ISS at 1729 GMT on 3 June from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA. The mission in service to NASA is carrying 3,328 kg of cargo, supplies, and hardware. Of this an important part are the first...
