Satellite Launch Business

Firefly Aerospace paused preparations for its next Alpha rocket launch originally planned for early 2022, due to the U.S. government making its largest shareholder to divest its stake for national security reasons, SpaceNews reported. Noosphere Venture Partners will sell its interest in Firefly at the request of the Committee

Spanish satellite launcher, PLD Space, announced it has closed a Series B funding round of US $28M through the co-investment initiative of Innvierte program. The operation was led by Arcano Partners, Aciturri and the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI).

Russia launched its third successful demonstration flight of the Angara A5 rocket on Monday, however, its Persei upper stage suffered a failure, NASA Spaceflight reported. This was the final launch needed to enter operational status, although further tests might be needed prior to operations.

In this Space Café Radio – our Review 2021 series, SpaceWatch.Global publisher Torsten Kriening spoke with Dr Malcolm Davis, Senior Analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in Canberra about military space in 2021 in Australia and globally and what to watch out for the upcoming year. 

SpaceWatch.Global is pleased to present the 45th episode, a special, in our podcast series Space Cafe Podcast#045 Special: Peter Rumler, ESA, Launching James Webb Space Telescope. Episode 045 features a special guest Peter Rumler. Anyone who takes time for an interview just 40 minutes before the launch of the largest telescope of all time has a lot of nerve.

A Soyuz-2.1b rocket equipped with the Fregat upper stage is to launch 36 OneWeb communications satellites later today from the Baikonur spaceport, Roscosmos reported. The deployment of the new spacecraft will increase the number of satellites in the cluster to 394.

Ariane 5 has launched the giant James Webb Telescope into its transfer orbit. The Ariane 5 rocket lifted off from the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on Christmas day, and the telescope separated successfully at an altitude of close to 1500 kilometers 27 minutes into the flight.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and The Strategist, we have been granted permission to publish selected articles. This is “Australia needs new early warning capability to counter threat from China’s new missiles” by Malcolm Davis, originally published on 21 December 2021.

SpaceX launched a new set of Starlink satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket over the weekend, setting a new reusability record for the vehicle before launching a Turkish communication satellite just 16 hours later. While the 52 satellites were deployed by the rocket’s upper stage, the booster completed its record-breaking 11th flight.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Orbital Gateway Consulting we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. We are pleased to present “Dongfang Hour China Aerospace News Roundup 13 - 19 December 2021”. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Dongfang Hour China Aero/Space News Roundup!