SSI News
Loft Orbital raises US$140m in funding and later orders more satellite buses from LeoStella/Airbus
American “Space infrastructure” company Loft Orbit raised US$140 million in funding in December. Its largest fundraising round to date was led by BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager and renowned for its investment in the space industry. Loft Orbital declined...
Chinasat-6A is likely total loss after attitude control issue
The Chinese telecommunications satellite Chinasat-6A (aka Sinosat 6) is likely to be declared a total loss for insurance purposes after the satellite failed to recover from the attitude control issues it has been suffering since early December. The satellite, which...
TAIFA-1 to be built by Endurosat for Kenya’s Sayari Labs, launched on Falcon 9 as Endurosat also tapped to build space weather cubesat for Mission Space
Bulgarian small satellite maker Endurosat has joined forces with Kenya's SayarLabs who will respectively build and operate a 3U cubesat-class spacecaft TAIFA-1. TAIFA-1, meaning “one nation” from Swahili, first Kenyan 3U software-defined NanoSat. TAIFA-1 will be...
China launches Long March 4C out of Jiuquan carrying Ludi Tance radar sat
China successfully launched a Long March 4C (CZ-4C) launch vehicle from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre, China, at 2355 on 25 January 2022. The vehicle was carrying the Ludi Tance-01-A (English meaning: Land Exploration-01-A) satellite which carries a L-band...
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) puts itself into Halo orbit around Sun-Earth L2
After a painstaking operation during its four weeks post-launch, engineers at NASA confirmed that the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) had all its key pieces (sun shield, secondary and primary mirrors etc) properly deployed, erected and locked into place. However,...
One Starlink launch batch does not look very healthy: one in five satellites appear to have failed
While for the most part SpaceX Starlink satellites have proved to be reliable – or at least reliable enough to begin commercial telecommunications service – astrophysicist and space orbital analyst, Jonathan McDowell, has noted that the satellites launched on Starlink...
ULA Atlas V launch vehicle in “Lopsided” 511 configuration flies straight to put a pair of satellite GSSAP satellite snoopers into orbit
The Boeing/Lockheed Martin-owned launch provider, the United Launch Alliance (ULA), which mainly specialises in US military launches, successfully launched the first Atlas 511 vehicle from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, USA, at 1900 GMT on 21 January....
SpaceX launches second Starlink mission of the year, 13 days after the first
SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 49 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Centre, Florida, USA. The flight lifted-off at 0203 GMT on 19 January, a two hour delay from its original target. This mission, like that of the previous launch on 6...
SpaceX launches first planned Transporter rideshare mission of 2022 carrying over 100 satellites
The SpaceX Transporter-3 rideshare mission launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, at 1525 GMT, 13 January carrying over 100 satellites. The launch was targeted to deliver its payloads into a circa~ 525 km, sun-synchronous LEO (inclined at 97.6 degrees). The mission...
Russian cosmonauts make spacewalk to work on Prichal module as usual ISS activity goes on
Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov, current commander of Expedition 66, and Peytr Dubrov made a spacewalk from the International Space Station (ISS) on 19 January to prepare the recently docked Prichal module to accept new Progress and new Soyuz crew-carrying craft...
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