Satellite Launch Business

By Blaine Curcio and Tianyi Lan Many would correctly say that much of the innovation in the Western space industry over the past decade has occurred because of the private sector. While billionaires such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos get a disproportionate share of media coverage, there are dozens …

Affordable worldwide internet coverage is one step closer as of 18 February 2019, after 18 million pounds (U.S.$23.2 million) of UK Space Agency funding was awarded to OneWeb through the European Space Agency (ESA), to aid the development of its next generation satellite constellation. A global communications network in space, …

Australian rocket company, Gilmour Space Technologies, has unveiled its ‘One Vision’ rocket which it plans to launch later this month, and conducted a live demonstration of its automated mobile launcher, the first of its kind in Australia. “One Vision is a scaled version of our Ariel sounding rocket, and its …

Australia’s first commercial spaceport, Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA), has announced that it has inked a contract with U.S.-based TriSept Corporation, that offers launch integration services, rideshare and dedicated missions to small satellite customers. This agreement will see ELA provide an efficient launch and recovery location for the fast-growing commercial satellite …

Orbex has announced that it is partnering with UK-based Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) to carry an experimental payload on its maiden flight from Scotland in 2021. The first launch of the Orbex Prime rocket will represent a first for the UK space industry, showcasing the UK’s end to end …

Four new O3b Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites have arrived safely at the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, in preparation for launch by a Soyuz rocket from Arianespace in late March 2019, SES has announced. The new Ka-band satellites will join SES’s existing constellation of 16 MEO satellites …

The head of the French national space agency, the Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES), Jean-Yves Le Gall, spoke at the French-Russian seminar organized by GIFAS, the French aerospace industries association, at the Espace Hamelin in Paris on 30 January 2019. President Le Gall kicked off the round table session on ‘The …

Arianespace has successfully orbited two telecommunications satellites: the Saudi Geostationary Satellite 1/Hellas Sat 4 condosat for operators King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and Hellas Sat; and GSAT-31 for the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Arianespace’s first launch of the year took place on Tuesday, 5 February 2019 …

Reaching a desired orbit in space is set to become easier and more cost-effective, as space transportation start-up Momentus is soon to prove with its Vigoride service. German launch service provider, Exolaunch has signed a contract worth over U.S.$6 million with the Momentus to move its CubeSats and Microsatellites into …

By Blaine Curcio and Tianyi Lan One could be correct in saying that China has a history of firing rockets into the sky. The earliest evidence of fireworks dates back to the ninth century Tang Dynasty, and over the last thousand-plus years, China has continued to put on some of the world’s …