Satellite Launch Business

Uganda and Zimbabwe have launched their respective first satellites, on November 7 2022, onto the International Space Station for subsequent deployment into orbit at a later date. The satellites, PearlAfricaSat-1 and ZimSat-1, were launched at the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on the Northrop Grumman (NG-18 Cygnus) commercial cargo resupply services to the ISS).

Spanish launcher company PLD Space, successfully completed the first ever European flight mission test of a microlauncher, MIURA 1, the company said. The aim of the 122-second test was to demonstrate that all components work nominally and to fine-tune the parameters for the first flight unit.

OneWeb CEO Sunil Bharti Mittal has announced that it will become ready for service in the second half of 2023 as it will complete the launch of its constellations by March 2023. Sunil made this announcement at the ongoing Connecting the World from the Skies forum, organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Saudi Arabia Communications, Space & Technology Commission (CST). 

D-Orbit spa, Exprivia spa, Planetek Italia srl, and Serco Italia spa have established OSIRIDE (Operational Solutions for IRIDE) to generate ideas by fostering the emergence of startups and innovative approaches for the development of the Iride satellite constellation. OSIRIDE will also extend benefits to a broad ecosystem of SMEs and startups in all Italian regions, thus ensuring innovation and further boosting the growth of aerospace districts.

POLARIS conducted a 4-day flight campaign at the Airport of Peenemünde on the Baltic Sea, lasting from Friday, 28th to Monday, 31st of October. While previous demonstrator flight test campaigns took place at the local airport of Rotenburg/Wümme close to Bremen, POLARIS now required significantly larger airspace for high-performance testing.

Sidus Space, Inc., a Space-as-a-Service company focused on mission-critical hardware manufacturing combined with commercial satellite design, manufacture, launch, and data collection, announced an agreement with Dawn Aerospace to implement its green, chemical propulsion technology into LizzieSat™.

Scottish rocket manufacturer and orbital launch services provider Orbex, is to build and operate the first vertical satellite launch site on UK mainland, the company said. The project will make Orbex the first European launcher company to also manage a dedicated spaceport.

After over three years, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy launched to space again carrying US military payloads as part of the USSF-44 mission to a geosynchronous Earth orbit. Falcon Heavy consists of three modified Falcon 9 first stage boosters.

Terran Orbital Corporation, a satellite-based solutions company, announced that it has entered into a note and warrant purchase agreement pursuant to which Terran Orbital received a $100 million investment from Lockheed Martin in exchange for convertible notes and warrants issued by Terran Orbital

Four South Australian companies are putting the final touches on the VS03 mission that will launch a rocket and state-of-the-art payloads to space from South Australia before the end of the year. The companies; Southern Launch, ATSpace, Asension and Inovor Technologies have collaborated on the mission which will see an ATSpace ‘Kestrel I’ rocket launched from the Southern Launch Whalers Way Orbital Launch Complex in November.