ISS gets Italian commander as Soyuz MS-21 leaves the space station and returns to Earth
The Italian ESA astronaut Samantha Cristoferetti took command of the International Space Station (ISS) from previous commander Oleg Artemiev on 28 September, just before he and his crew mates Denis Matveev and Sergei Korsakov boarded their Soyuz MS-21 spacecraft ready...
Cancelled Soyuz launches cost OneWeb US$229 million
British satellite operator OneWeb took a US$229 million hit for terminating its Soyuz launch contract in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The sizeable penalty, totalling US$229.2 million, was revealed as an impairment charge in the company's annual report....
European connection: Unseenlabs orders six more satellites from GomSpace
French new-space company Unseenlabs has ordered another six 6U-CubeSats from nanosatellite manufacturer and operator GomSpace, to expand its growing fleet. The six new satellites, which will be modelled on an upgraded platform jointly developed with Unseenlabs, will...
Small satellite orders Sept round up: Space Robot servicers, Rashid lunar rovers, QKD coders, methane monitors and radar sats
The month of September 2022 saw a spate of small satellite orders (plus some shared rides) made. These included: US Start-up Rogue Space Systems is planning a pair of satellites dubbed a cubesat-class spacecraft dubbed Space Robot to service and repair small...
DART strikes asteroid Dimorphos in orbit changing experiment
There have long been concerns that the Earth could one day be threatened by the imminent impact of a large object – usually an asteroid – from space. Scientists have mooted various ways of planetary defence ranging from nuclear missile strikes to asteroid deflection...
Two Chinese Long March launches put six satellites into LEO on same day: Yaogan 36-01A, B and C plus Shiyan 16A and B and Shiyan 17
China launched to space rockets on 26 September 2022. The first up was the Long March 2D/2 (CZ-2D/2) Y68 launch of three Yaogan-36 Group 1 satellites which were launched at 1338 GMT from the Xichang launch site. Yaogan 36-01-A and B payloads were developed by CASC,...
Falcon 9 launches another batch of Starlink satellites for SpaceX – this one of 52 Group 4-35 satellites
SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9v1.2FT Block 5 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA at 2332 GMT on 24 September 2022. The launch vehicle was carrying 52 other Starlink satellites (Group 4-35) for the SpaceX owned communications satellite constellation. The...
Kuaizhou 1A launches Shiyan 14 & 15 pair of Chinese satellites
The Chinese successfully launched a Kuaizhou 1A vehicle from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre, Shanxi Province, China at 2255 GMT on 24 September 2022. The vehicle was carrying Shiyan 14 & 15, two classified Chinese satellites.
ULA’s Delta Heavy launches secret L-91 payload for NRO
ULA successfully launched a Delta IV Heavy (DELTA IVH-4050H (Upgraded) from Vandenberg, California, USA at 2225 GMT on 24 September 2022. The vehicle was carrying NRO L-91 (Orion 12), a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). Details of the...
Russian Soyuz rocket launches Soyuz MS-22 with cosmonaut pair and NASA “exchange” astronaut aboard
While geopolitical events are now seriously effecting US-Russian relations and even Russo-Kazakh ones, it was still business as normal when it comes to crewed launches at the Baikonour Cosmodrome near Tyuratam, Kazakhstan. At 1354 GMT on 21 September 2022 a Soyuz...