HOUSTON (NASA PR) — Live coverage of Russia’s Progress 78 cargo spacecraft’s launch and docking to the International Space Station will begin at 7 p.m. EDT Tuesday, June 29, on NASA Television, the agency’s website, and the NASA app. The uncrewed spacecraft is scheduled to launch on a Soyuz 2.1a rocket at 7:27 p.m. (4:27 a.m. Wednesday, June 30, Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The Progress spacecraft will go into orbit […]

GREENBELT, Md. (NASA PR) — NASA has awarded a contract to the University of Michigan for the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS) for mission operations and closeout. A constellation of eight microsatellites, the system can view storms more frequently and in a way traditional satellites are unable to, increasing scientists’ ability to understand and predict hurricanes.

SILVER SPRING, Md. (NOAA PR) — Satellites collect huge amounts of information about our planet’s oceans and land masses every day, and complex mathematical algorithms help us process and make sense of it. However, since these algorithms are designed to work best for either one or the other, it is more difficult to get high-quality, accurate information about where the two come together—the coasts. That’s where NOAA’s Committee on Earth Observation Satellites—Coastal Observations, Applications, Services, and Tools (CEOS COAST) comes in. 

MCLEAN, Va., June 24, 2021 (Iridium PR) – Iridium Communications Inc. (NASDAQ: IRDM) today announced it has been awarded a research and development contract worth up to $30 million by the United States Army (Army) to develop a payload to be hosted on small satellites that supports navigation systems, guidance and control for the global positioning system (GPS) and GPS-denied precision systems. The new experimental Iridium payload is intended to be hosted by another Low Earth Orbit (LEO) commercial satellite constellation, complementing the Iridium^® constellation’s capabilities.

Through this contract the Army intends to develop this payload to support the concept of a rapidly deployable smallsat constellation to provide more effective sensor-to-soldier data transmission when in the field. The development of this new payload is based on Iridium Burst^® technology, a unique service that can transmit data to millions of enabled devices at a time from space.

China’s surging space program showed no sign of slowing down last year as it tied its own launch record and moved ahead with ambitious space missions and a set of new launchers.

China compiled a record of 35 successes and four failures in 2020. That matched the number of launch attempts made in 2018, a year that saw 38 successes and a single failure.

TUKWILA, Wash., June 24, 20211 (LeoStella PR) – LeoStella, a specialized satellite constellation design and manufacturing company, delivered its first satellite to Loft Orbital Solutions Inc. (Loft Orbital). LeoStella delivered the “Yet Another Mission-3” (YAM-3) satellite to Cape Canaveral for an upcoming SpaceX launch. The YAM-3 satellite will host a variety of payloads, including a demonstration for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Blackjack program and an Internet of Things payload for Eutelsat. The satellite is part of a broader contract to build and integrate satellite buses for several upcoming Loft Orbital missions.

The delivery of this satellite demonstrates LeoStella’s ability to leverage its continuous manufacturing line of commercial satellites to respond to short-term mission needs.

“We have built a great partnership with Loft Orbital,” said Brian Rider, chief technology officer at LeoStella. “By pulling satellites off our production line, we are able to tailor them for Loft’s Payload Hub and get them delivered in less than half the time normally required for a satellite build cycle. Loft has a unique approach to ‘Make Space Simple’ for their customers. We are proud to be part of their ecosystem of enabling technologies and processes.” 

COLUMBIA, Ill., June 24, 2021 (NanoAvionics PR) – NanoAvionics is gearing up for the SpaceX Transporter-2 rideshare launch at the end of June, with several satellite missions from its customers, promising to have a positive impact on businesses and communities in remote regions on Earth, as well as pioneering an ionic liquid electrospray propulsion system. Among the applications onboard are also the world’s first 1U-sized hyperspectral imager and a new high-gain X-band antenna.

SpaceX has announced that it is delaying the launch of its Transporter-2 rideshare mission that had been scheduled for Friday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to allow the launch team to make some additional checks. Reports say the new launch date will be no earlier than Monday, June 28. Transporter-2 will deploy about 90 satellites into a sun synchronous orbit (SSO). The flight follows on the heels of the […]

SILVER SPRING, Md. (NOAA PR) — Richard (Rick) W. Spinrad, Ph.D., an internationally renowned scientist with four decades of ocean, atmosphere, and climate science and policy expertise, was sworn in today by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo as the under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and the 11th NOAA administrator. This follows his confirmation by the U.S. Senate on June 17, 2021.

Funding led by Inventus Capital Partners will focus on manufacturing and automation to meet increasing demand.

HOUGHTON, Mich., June 24, 2021 — Orbion Space Technology, developer of next-generation smallsat electric propulsion solutions, today announced it has raised $20M in Series B funding in an oversubscribed round led by Inventus Capital Partners, a venture firm focused on developing companies that are defining and dominating high-growth markets. Additional participants in the round include Material Impact, Beringea, and Wakestream Ventures. 

Flexible taxi-like pay-as-you-go propulsion service enables satellite operators and service providers to dramatically reduce upfront mission costs and boost revenues and ROI by converting capex to opex

SCOUT and Orbit Fab have signed the first Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) agreements to speed their OSAM missions

BURLINGTON, Vt., June 23, 2021 (Benchmark Space Systems PR) – Benchmark Space Systems, a leading provider of in-space mobility products and services, today announced a breakthrough in-space mobility service that virtually eliminates upfront propulsion equipment costs and boosts on-orbit, servicing, assembly and manufacturing (OSAM) mission revenues by allowing satellite operators and service providers to pay as they go for in-space transport.

This Year’s Virtual Conference Streams Free to All Starting Today

WASHINGTON, DC (NSS PR) — The National Space Society is proud to announce the presentation of the prestigious Wernher von Braun Memorial Award to SpaceX President and CEO Gwynne Shotwell at its annual International Space Development Conference®, which will be held virtually this year from June 24 through the 27th. Ms. Shotwell will speak on the future of SpaceX’s endeavors and on the development and exploration of cislunar space.

Shotwell joined SpaceX in 2002 when the company was in its earliest stages. She was promoted to president of the company in 2008 following her successful negotiation with NASA for the Commercial Resupply Services contract. Her responsibilities have included building the launch manifest of the company’s revolutionary Falcon 9 rocket, which has captured a large portion of global launch contracts. Shotwell was also integral to SpaceX’s successful bid to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station, which the company accomplished in 2020.