SpaceX continued its weekly launch pace with liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket on May 25 carrying 59 small satellites and hosted payloads, marking the company’s fifth rideshare mission. Following launch at 2:35 p.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the rocket’s first stage returned to the launch site while the upper stage fired to place the Transporter-5 payloads into a preliminary polar orbit.
Axiom Space and Italy’s minister for Technological Innovation and Digital Transition have signed a memorandum of understanding to advance existing collaboration, the Houston-based firm announced May 25.
Another lunar buggy contender is emerging, this time with an autonomous explorer angle: Lunar Outpost on May 24 unveiled a $12 million seed round, promising a new class of autonomous Moon rovers.
The Outpost Mars Demo-1 payload, an on-orbit metal cutting robotic arm, is being prepared to launch aboard SpaceX’s Transporter 5 rideshare flight on May 25.
Satcom Direct (SD) is nearing commercial introduction of its Plane Simple Antenna System supporting inflight broadband connectivity for business aviation using the Intelsat FlexExec network.
Satellite operator Inmarsat and equipment supplier Honeywell have launched SwiftJet, an enhanced L-band satcoms service for business aviation, at EBACE 2022.
The new inflight broadband service for bizjets will access OneWeb’s constellation using a new electronically steered antenna (ESA) that Gogo has designed in conjunction with Hughes Network Systems.
The uncrewed Starliner flight test is part of a joint NASA-Boeing program to develop crew transportation services to the ISS and future destinations in low Earth orbit.
After its KA-SAT satellite internet service in Europe was disrupted on Feb. 24 by an alleged cyberattack from Russia, Viasat shared details of the attack with industry competitors via the U.S. Space Force’s Commercial Integration Cell.
Fresh off the success of the first U.S. private astronaut mission to the International Space Station, Axiom Space has broken ground on a headquarters campus at Houston Spaceport to support work on the first U.S. commercially developed and operated space station.
Satellite air launch company Virgin Orbit has secured an agreement with conversion specialist L3 Harris Technologies to acquire two Boeing 747-400 airframes to support growth plans for additional launch capacity.
The U.S., the European Union and multiple other nations on May 10 formally attributed cyber attacks against Viasat’s KA-SAT network on Feb. 24 to Russia, claiming Moscow attempted to disrupt Ukrainian command and control as the invasion began.
The highly anticipated debut of the WorldView Legion high-resolution constellation from Maxar Technologies is slipping again, this time to September, as the Colorado company works through a test configuration anomaly, executives announced late May 9.
Xona Space Systems has finished environmental testing of its Huginn demonstrator satellite ahead of its planned May 25 launch on SpaceX’s Transporter 5 rideshare mission.
