Satellite Launch Business

On 13 January 2023, the Swedish head of state, King Carl XVI Gustaf, and European and Swedish political dignitaries will visit Esrange Space Center in northern Sweden to cut the ribbon of a new spaceport. The new spaceport, which saw years of preparation and construction, will significantly reshape the European space landscape. The event will take place in Kiruna in conjunction with Sweden taking over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

The Meteosat Third Generation – Imager 1 (MTG-I1) satellite has successfully reached its intended orbit, nearly 36,000km above the Equator, after its 13 December launch from Kourou, French Guiana. As a result, EUMETSAT has taken control of its newest addition to its fleet of meteorological satellites.

SpaceWatch.Global is pleased to present: The Space Café Podcast #70: Jim Green - former chief scientist NASA about the past and future of space science and the agency’s secret sauce. James Green has served 40 years with NASA and sports some of its most prestigious missions. In the current episode of the Space Café Podcast, he talks about SLS, James Webb, Artemis, DART, space science and the future of the space industry. 

In this Space Café Radio - SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening spoke with Kevin Scullion, International Trade Specialist at Scottish Development International (SDI), about the Scottish space sector, the opportunities and the challenges and the strategy for supporting space to become a unique business segment for Scotland.

GKN Aerospace has signed a contract with ArianeGroup to supply the next phase of Ariane 6 turbines and Vulcain nozzles. The contract includes the manufacturing and supply of units for the next 14 Ariane 6 launchers, which will begin production now until 2025

Following consent from Transport Secretary Mark Harper, the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has issued the final remaining licences to Virgin Orbit ahead of its planned launch from the UK, the UK Government stated. The CAA granted the licences within 15 months.

NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to provide launch services for the Sentinel-6B mission. Sentinel-6B will continue the long-term global sea level data record begun in 1992 by Topex/Poseidon, followed by Jason 1, 2, 3, and Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich. The mission is a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT).

Saturn Satellite Networks has selected CesiumAstro’s Vireo-GEO active phased array RF payload for Saturn’s Space BroadbandNetworks-1 (SBN-1). The SBN-1 program consists of 6 high-throughput geostationary satellites (HTSs) that will provide satellite-based internet access services to satellite operators, capacity resellers, internet service providers, and end users.

Approximately 2 minutes and 27 seconds after liftoff an anomaly occurred on the rocket’s Zefiro 40 second stage, thus ending Arianespace’s Vega C mission, the company said. Data analyses are currently in progress to determine the reasons of the launch failure.

SES has announced that it has successfully launched the first two O3b mPOWER satellites into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, United States. With a design that will deliver unprecedented performance with a first-of-its-kind software-driven payload, O3b mPOWER is SES’s second-generation medium earth orbit (MEO) system.