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Category: satellites – Page 52

Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit has filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. after an eleventh-hour scramble to secure further funding failed, the satellite company announced on Tuesday, marking the end of a sudden spiral that followed a botched high-profile launch attempt out of Britain in January.

Virgin Orbit has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, documents show.

Virgin Orbit said it had failed to secure sufficient funding to stay in business and the decision comes less than a week after it laid off most of its staff and ceased operations.

Virgin Orbit, which laid off most of its staff last week, struggled to secure funding after a failed satellite launch from the U.K. in January.

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It is interesting to watch SpaceX continue to massively expand, with the goal of going from 61 launches last year to 100 launches this year.

SpaceX’s old record for a month was 7 launches, but in March they completed 8 launches, and almost did 9 but their latest launch had technical difficulties, and the closest they got to launch during the past two days was an abort with 2 seconds to go. They will try a 3rd time to launch this rocket tomorrow.

If SpaceX could do 9 launches/month, that would be 9 12 = 108 launches/year, or enough to meet their goal of 100 launches.

With Starlink now being profitable, they have a big incentive to launch as often as possible. The more they launch, the more they make!

SpaceX is now scheduled to launch a batch of 10 communications and missile tracking satellites on the Tranche 0 Flight 1 mission for the Space Development Agency (SDA) on Saturday, April 1, 2023. A first attempt on Thursday was aborted at T-3 seconds.

Continue reading “SpaceX aborts launch with initial satellites for Space Development Agency” | >

Some of the more well-known examples include retrievable and reusable rockets, retrieval at sea, mid-air retrieval, single-stage-to-orbit (SSTO) rockets, and kinetic launch systems.

In addition, there are also efforts to develop propulsion systems that do not rely on conventional propellants. This technology offers many advantages, including lower mass and improved energy efficiency, ultimately lowering costs.

On June 10, 2023, an all-electrical propulsion system for satellites (the IVO Quantum Drive) will fly to space for the first time. The system was built by North Dakota-based wireless power company IVO, Ltd. and will serve as a testbed for an alternative theory of inertia that could have applications for propulsion.

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The company will charge $50 million per launch of its next-gen rocket, bringing it in line with SpaceX.

Rocket Lab is developing a larger, reusable rocket called Neutron to help it compete with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 launch capabilities.

Rocket Lab’s Neutron will “compete directly with the Falcon 9”.

Rocket Lab.

The company, which has launched 159 satellites to date with its Electron launch system, is targeting a price point of roughly $50 million per launch, meaning it will cost marginally less than a Falcon 9 launch.

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(CNN) — Startup Relativity Space sent what it’s calling the “world’s first 3D-printed rocket” toward space on Wednesday, vaulting it into the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Though, it suffered an engine issue after launch and failed to reach orbit.

Terran 1, a 110-foot-tall (33.5-meter) vehicle designed to haul lightweight satellites into orbital space, lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Florida’s eastern coast at just before 11:30 pm ET. The rocket, powered by super-chilled methane and oxygen, burned a bright blue-green against the night sky.

After the first stage of the rocket — the bottommost portion of the rocket that gives the initial thrust at liftoff — expended its fuel, it detached from the rocket’s upper stage. But the engine meant to propel that portion appeared to ignite only briefly, leaving the rocket without enough power to reach orbit.

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United Launch Alliance’s second-to-last Delta 4-Heavy rocket is scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral April 20 with a classified cargo for the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency, a mission that will mark ULA’s first flight of the year, officials announced this week.

ULA and the National Reconnaissance Office, the customer for the national security mission, announced the target launch date Tuesday.

The mission is known as NROL-68, and is expected to loft a large surveillance satellite into geosynchronous orbit, joining a fleet of government-owned spacecraft designed to eavesdrop on the communications of adversaries and foreign powers. But the NRO does not disclose details about its missions, and independent analysts use information about the rocket’s lift capability, trajectory, and similar past launches to predict the purpose of spy satellite missions.

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It’s called the Einstein Probe and it’s meant to observe the changing universe.

China has ambitious plans to launch a new X-ray astronomical satellite called the Einstein Probe (EP) at the end of this year. This is according to a report by the ChinaDaily.

“The satellite has entered the final stage of development,” he said at the recent 35th National Symposium on Space Exploration.

EP will have many missions, including capturing the first light from supernova explosions, helping search for gravitational wave sources, and observing the transient phenomena in the universe.

Einstein Probe.

This is according to a report by the ChinaDaily published on Saturday and quoting Yuan Weimin, principal investigator of the satellite project.

Continue reading “China to launch lobster eye-like X-ray astronomical satellite this year” | >