Satellite Launch Business

It has been a busy few weeks in the Middle Eastern satellite and space sector, with developments and activities taking place from Morocco to Iran, and all points in between. The following is a roundup of the regional space and satellite news that was not previously covered in-depth by SpaceWatch.MiddleEast. …

Japanese company ANA Holdings, best known for operating All Nippon Airlines, and trading house Marubeni Corporation have partnered to build a spaceport in Japan as early as 2021, according to a report in the Nikkei Asian Review. The spaceport will be used for private space travel, such as space tourism, …

SpaceX successfully launched the Es’hail-2 satellite for Qatar’s Es’hailsat on Thursday, 15 November 2018, from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, United States. Liftoff occurred at 3:46 p.m. EST, or 20:46 UTC, and the satellite was deployed to a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) about 32 minutes …

U.S. New Space launch provider Rocket Lab has closed a Series E financing round of U.S.$140 million. The funding round closed last month, prior to the launch of the successful mission ‘It’s Business Time,’ and was led by existing investor Future Fund, with strong participation from current investors including Greenspring …

Morocco’s Mohammed VI-B high-resolution Earth observation satellite is expected to be launched on an Arianespace launch vehicle from the Kourou Space Centre in French Guiana on 20 November 2018, on board an Arianespace Vega satellite launch vehicle, with the mission dubbed by Arianespace as Vega Flight VV13. If the launch …

South Korean government agencies and universities have five payloads on board the upcoming SpaceX Falcon-9 launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, United States. The launch is currently scheduled for 19 November 2018, and will loft approximately 60 satellites from numerous countries and companies. The South Korean payloads come …

ICEYE, the Finnish Earth observation company creating the world’s largest synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite constellation, confirmed on 8 November 2018 that it is launching the company’s second SAR satellite, ICEYE-X2, into low Earth orbit on Spaceflight’s SSO-A: SmallSat Express mission. The mission is currently targeted to launch on 19 …

Fleet Space Technologies’ first two satellites, Proxima I and II, were launched on 11 November 2018 on-board Rocket Lab’s manifest, It’s Business Time. This launch marks Australia’s first ever commercial CubeSats in orbit. The launch of the two CubeSats at Launch Complex-1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula represent a huge …

Rocket Lab has continued the success of its 2018 orbital launch program with the launch of seven payloads to orbit on 11 November 2018. The mission, named ‘It’s Business Time,’ marks Rocket Lab’s second successful orbital launch and deployment of customer satellites. Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle lifted-off from Launch …

Spaceflight, a satellite rideshare and mission management company, has announced that it will launch twelve satellites on board an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) later in November 2018, to include a satellite for Australian New Space company Fleet Space Technologies, who are having two satellites …