There are already well over 500 working Starlink satellites in orbit from Elon Musk’s SpaceX operation. SpaceX has launched almost 600 satellites but some have inevitably failed in orbit. Starlink’s existing ‘friends and family’ beta tests will be expanded once SpaceX places another 240 or so satellites into orbit. This will need another four rocket […]
SpaceX launched an additional 57 of its Starlink satellites into orbit on August 7th from its Florida facility. This latest batch takes the overall number launched to 595 although a handful have failed and been allowed to burn up in the atmosphere. Nevertheless, SpaceX is now firmly the operator of the world’s largest satellite constellation. […]
SES has made its decision for the upcoming launches for five of its planned C-band satellites. It has chosen the United Launch Alliance (ULA) to place two of its C-band satellites into orbit in 2022, whilst SpaceX gets an order for the launch of three C-band satellites. The ULA will use one of its giant […]
SpaceX will launch its much-postponed 10th payload of Starlink satellites on August 1st from its Florida base. SpaceX will carry 57 Starlink satellites plus two guest payloads for BlackSky. Launch is scheduled for 03.21am Florida time (07.21 UTC) from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center. This flight will be the fifth launch for the […]
Elon Musk, flushed with the stock market success of his Tesla vehicle business, is seeking to raise more cash. This time the cash would go to SpaceX. This fund-raising would be the N-series and Musk, according to Bloomberg, wants at least $500 million and possibly $1 billion which would give his rocket-launching business a valuation […]
SpaceX launched a South Korean military satellite on July 20th, and just 8 minutes after launch brought down the Falcon 9’s first stage onto a textbook landing onto its floating barge (‘Just Read The Instructions’) positioned some 645 kms down range. This was the 12th launch this year for SpaceX. Not satisfied with recovering the […]
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has quite a lot of work on hand and consequently is currently delaying rocket launches. For example, a launch scheduled for July 14th (of Anasis-II) was scrubbed because of a need to take a closer look at the Falcon 9’s second stage and perhaps swapping out hardware, according to a SpaceX statement. […]
The joint bid for OneWeb’s assets by the UK government and India telco giant Bharti should get outline approval from the New York Southern District Bankruptcy Court today, July 10th. There are still a few formal logistical steps to be negotiated and the purchase is not likely to be totally signed off until November 27th […]
SpaceX is due to carry out the launch of a military satellites for the US Space Force on June 30th. The launch is pretty routine for SpaceX and its Falcon 9 rocket, but despite having carried out 86 similar launches (and which included returning 47 to either solid ground or one of Elon Musk’s floating […]
First it was bad weather at the Cape which slipped the June 23rd launch to June 25th, then June 26th, but then the Falcon 9 rocket with a cargo of 57 Starlink satellites – plus a few guest craft – was postponed again just 2 hours before the planned launch – even though the weather […]