Australia’s Southern Launch and the Koonibba Community Aboriginal Corp have combined for a new space launch facility at the Koonibba Test Range in South Australia. Planning consent has been granted for the development. Koonibba is about 586 kms northwest of state capital Adelaide. The Test Range was established in 2019 and is surrounded by an […]
Struggling rocket developer Astra Space is to conduct a 1-for-15 stock split and in the process raise around $65 million (€58.9m) to continue its work on its Rocket 4 launch vehicle. The 1-for-15 stock split will issue one new share to stockholders in a swap for 15 existing shares. The company’s filing with the SEC […]
A Las Vegas real estate developer wants to build a spaceport on 240 acres of near-desert scrub in Clark County. Rob Lauer, the developer, is seeking to raise $310 million (€284.4m) to build a launch pad, a runway for spaceplanes, a control tower and a flight-training school. Also in the plan is a 200-room hotel […]
A growing loss in trading is hardly surprising given that Virgin Galactic, the sub-orbital tourist rocket scheme, has been stuck on the ground these past two years. But that is about to change with a sub-orbital flight scheduled for late June (and a non-commercial flight due later in May) and following on from a successful […]
It isn’t so very long ago that electrical propulsion for satellites was a very new kid on the block. Boeing’s Xenon-Ion Propulsion System (XIPS) was introduced on the (then) Hughes 702 versions its high-power versions of its popular HS-702 craft and used for final orbital insertion. December 1999 saw the launch of an HS-702 with […]
Prior to the Ukraine invasion by Russia and the destruction of the giant Antonov-225 aircraft in Kyiv many of the world’s largest satellites and rocket elements were flown from Europe to their North or South American launch sites by the Antonov. Arianespace has a new method of transportation. Ariane has just wrapped a test transatlantic […]
While much of the world’s press recently focused on Virgin Orbit’s failed ‘horizontal’ aircraft launch of a batch of 9 small satellites from Spaceport Cornwall, other rivals are gearing up to tap into the growing demand for satellite launches. Sweden has claimed the crown as “mainland Europe’s first orbital launch site”. Ursula von der Leyen, […]
China has used a mobile sea platform based in the Yellow Sea to launch 14 satellites into orbit. The rocket (named Jielong-3, or ‘Smart Dragon-3’) lifted off on December 9th from the Tai Rui modified barge in the Yellow Sea. The mission carried eight satellites built by Changguang Satellite Technology, which concentrates on remote sensing, […]
India’s Space Research Organisation (ISRO) says it has plans to design and build a new reusable rocket for the global market that would significantly cut the cost of launching satellites. “All of us want launches to be much cheaper than what we do today,” Chairman of ISRO Sreedhara Somanath said, speaking at the Bengaluru Space […]
French Space Agency CNES (Centre National D’Etudes Spatiales) has approved Munich-based Isar Aerospace to launch its rockets from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana. Isar is already planning a late-2022 launch from Andøya in Norway of its Spectrum rocket, but has been in discussions CNES to utilise the Guyana spaceport. Isar says that the […]