Elon Musk’s giant Starship combination of rocket plus Super Heavy booster looks likely to be launched in the next few days. The importance for the satellite community is its potential capacity to launch far more Starlink satellites simultaneously – or larger/heavier commercial and NASA satellites – into orbit with a single launch. There are other […]
On March 29th, SpaceX’s Mission 5-10 added another 56 satellites to its constellation. The launch took place from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 4.01pm (Florida-time). The first stage booster supporting this mission previously launched Crew-5, GPS III Space Vehicle 06, and Inmarsat I-6 F2. This was […]
Rivada Networks wants to build and launch 600 satellites in a mega-constellation. However, the business is on a tight timetable as far as its launch schedule is concerned and badly needs the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to relax its rules. The first batch of satellites, numbering 300, are already on order. Rivada had hoped that […]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched its 20th flight of the year on March 24th, carrying 56 Starlink broadband satellites. The Falcon 9’s booster stage came back to Earth as planned 8.5 minutes after liftoff, making a pinpoint touchdown off the Florida coast on the SpaceX droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas. It was the 10th launch and […]
Recently, SpaceX launched some second-generation Starlink satellites for its broadband-by-satellite system. However, Elon Musk has confirmed it has problems with at least some of the satellites. On March 22nd Musk tweeted that there were “some issues” with the set of Starlink satellites launched February 27th, confirming industry speculation that some satellites had their orbits changed. […]
SpaceX, already the world’s busiest supplier of rocket launch capacity, says it can do more and could increase its launch frequency. A series of expert panels at the recent Satellite 2023 event in Washington, DC, talked about anticipated shortages in launch capacity especially in the 2024-2027 time frame. The decision by the Jeff Bezos-backed Project […]
The two SES satellites needed to complete the company’s C-band replacements will launch on Friday, March 17th, subject to the usual last minute weather considerations, on a SpaceX rocket. The announcement was made at the Washington Satellite 2023 show. Built by Northrop Grumman, SES-18 and SES-19 are set to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida. These […]
SpaceX’s Starlink broadband-by-satellite service has slashed its deposit fees on dozens of countries. New subscribers in many countries can sign up for as little as $9 (€8.40) instead of the – to date – $99 (and as high as $599 in the past) for the Starlink kit. Countries such as Turkey can access Starlink for […]
SpaceX delivered one of its textbook launches for OneWeb on March 9th. OneWeb later confirmed that all was well with the batch of 40 craft. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 mission took off from Space Launch Complex 40 in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on March 9, at 2:13 pm Florida-time (19.13 UTC). The satellites were deployed to low-Earth […]
SpaceX is likely to launch 40 OneWeb satellites into orbit on March 9th. This launch will be OneWeb’s 17th to date and its third with SpaceX, keeping the company on track to deliver global coverage in 2023. This is the penultimate mission for OneWeb ahead of its final launch (by India) which will complete the […]