SWISSTO12 TO BUILD SMALL ASIA-FOCUSED DIRECT-TO-DEVICE GEO SATELLITE - Singapore’s Astrum Mobile has ordered a small satellite from Swissto12 to deliver resilient, low-bandwidth multimedia and connectivity services directly to devices across Asia from geostationary orbit (GEO). Announcing its third customer for the HummingSat platform March 10, Switzerland-based S... More (Source: SpaceNews - Mar 11)
SPACEX SCRUBS LAUNCH OF TWO NASA SATELLITE MISSIONS - Two NASA missions will have to wait longer for a launch aboard a single rocket. Both aim to unravel mysteries about the universe — one by peering far from Earth, the other by looking closer to home. SpaceX on Saturday night announced on the social platform X about two hours before the scheduled... More (Source: The Japan Times - Mar 10)
SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH OF NORWAY’S NEW SATELLITE - During the night leading into Wednesday, the control room established contact with the satellite, and everything looks good. The launch was carried out by SpaceX using a Falcon-9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The Transport-12 mission carried several small satellites of va... More (Source: SatNews - Mar 10)
CHINA EXPANDS SECRETIVE SATELLITE SERIES WITH LAUNCH OF TJS-15 - China launched the latest in a series classified satellites into geosynchronous transfer orbit Sunday while disclosing little about the spacecraft. A Long March 3B rocket lifted off at 12:17 p.m. Eastern (1717 UTC) March 9 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, southwest China. The China Aeros... More (Source: SpaceNews - Mar 10)
FOR NASA ASTRONAUTS ON A 10-DAY SPACE MISSION THAT LASTED 9 MONTHS, A LANDING DATE AT LAST - Two NASA astronauts who launched on a short mission to the International Space Station last year that turned into a 10-month marathon finally know when they'll be coming home. The Boeing Starliner astronauts, who launched on the spacecraft's Crewed Flight Test on June 5, have been living aboard t... More (Source: Space.com - Mar 10)
NASA LAUNCH OF SPHEREX AND PUNCH SPACE MISSIONS DELAYED - Two NASA missions called "SPHEREx" and "PUNCH" will not be sharing a ride to space this weekend. The agency had planned to launch both missions at the same time on Saturday (March 8) aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket; SpaceX is continuing to complete vehicle checkouts, delaying the liftoff. A ne... More (Source: Space.com - Mar 9)
ROCKET LAB UNVEILS PLAN TO LAND NEUTRON ROCKETS AT SEA, 1ST LAUNCH IN 2025 - The private space company Rocket Lab is on track to launch the first of its new reusable Neutron Rocket in the second half of 2025 and will eventually land them at sea, the company revealed. Rocket Lab founder and CEO Peter Beck shared updates on Neutron during the company’s Feb. 26 earnings ca... More (Source: Space.com - Mar 9)
SPACEX DRAGON CAPSULE ARRIVES AT LAUNCH SITE FOR CREW-10 ASTRONAUT FLIGHT TO ISS - The capsule that will carry the next crew to the International Space Station has reached the SpaceX hangar at the mission's launch pad. The Crew Dragon Endurance will ferry the next set of astronauts to the International Station (ISS). That mission, called Crew-10, is set to launch on a SpaceX Fa... More (Source: Space.com - Mar 8)
X-37B ORBITAL TEST VEHICLE CONCLUDES SEVENTH SUCCESSFUL MISSION - The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle-7 (OTV-7), the U.S. Space Force’s dynamic unmanned spaceplane, successfully deorbited and landed at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, March 7, 2025 at 02:22 a.m. EST. The U.S. Space Force landed the X-37B at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, to exercise... More (Source: United States Space Force - Mar 7)
EUROPE'S ARIANE 6 DEPLOYS SPY SATELLITE IN FIRST FULL MISSION - Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket successfully deployed a French spy satellite in its first fully operational launch on Thursday, completing a return to space for a continent facing questions over its role amid a security rift with the United States. The uncrewed launcher lifted off from Europe's spacep... More (Source: Reuters - Mar 7)
STARSHIP UPPER STAGE LOST IN SECOND MISHAP IN A ROW - SpaceX launched its huge Starship rocket on the program’s eighth test flight Thursday, but a malfunction of some sort triggered multiple upper stage engine shutdowns and for the second flight in a row, the vehicle failed to reach its planned sub-orbital altitude and broke apart in a shower of debr... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Mar 7)
ISS ASTRONAUTS REJECT CALL FOR EARLY RETIREMENT OF THE STATION - Astronauts on the International Space Station said they disagreed with Elon Musk’s claim that the station was past its prime and should be deorbited in as soon as two years. Speaking to reporters March 4, NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been on the station since June o... More (Source: SpaceNews - Mar 7)
NASA’S SPACEX CREW-9 SCIENTIFIC MISSION ON SPACE STATION CONCLUDES - NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 mission with agency astronauts Nick Hague, Butch Wilmore, and Suni Williams, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov is preparing to return to Earth following their science mission aboard the International Space Station. Hague, Williams, and Wilmore completed more than 900 ... More (Source: NASA - Mar 7)
APEX’S FIRST SATELLITE MARKS ONE YEAR IN ORBIT - The first spacecraft built by satellite manufacturing startup Apex continues to work well after a year in orbit as the company leverages that experience for future spacecraft. The Aries SN1 spacecraft launched last March on the SpaceX Transporter-10 rideshare mission. The spacecraft was a demonst... More (Source: SpaceNews - Mar 6)
AS SATELLITE COLLISION RISKS INCREASE, EPHEMERIS SHARING IS VITAL - As the number of satellites in LEO continues to grow exponentially, when it comes to a satellite’s location, sharing is caring. Varying predictions have the satellite population in LEO increasing by two- to six-fold by the end of this decade. That is a phenomenal growth rate that will provide a... More (Source: - Mar 5)
STRANDED US ASTRONAUTS EXPECTED TO RETURN HOME AFTER NINE MONTHS IN SPACE - Two NASA astronauts are expected to come home this month after being stranded in space since June. Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were originally scheduled for an eight-day mission, but their return was complicated when the Boeing Starliner spacecraft was deemed unsafe for the journey home.... More (Source: ABC News - Mar 5)
SUPER HEAVY BOOSTER ISSUE CAUSES SCRUB OF SPACEX’S STARSHIP FLIGHT 8 - SpaceX had to stand down from the launch of its latest Starship test flight from its Starbase facility in southern Texas on Monday, March 3. The Federal Aviation Administration gave the okay for the company to move forward with the mission on Feb. 26. Less than 30 minutes before the planned launc... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Mar 4)
ARIANESPACE SCRUBS ARIANE 6’S FIRST COMMERCIAL LAUNCH DUE TO GROUND SYSTEMS ISSUE - Airanespace and the European Space Agency (ESA) had to stand down from the planned launch of the first Ariane 6 rocket of the year and the second in program history on Monday, March 3. David Cavaillolès, the CEO of Arianespace, confirmed there was a ground systems issue that prevented the launch... More (Source: SpoaceFlight Now - Mar 4)
THE MODERN ERA OF LOW-FLYING SATELLITES MAY BEGIN THIS WEEK - The idea of flying satellites in "very" low-Earth orbit is not new. Dating back to the dawn of the space age in the late 1950s, the first US spy satellites, as part of the Corona program, orbited the planet as low as 120 to 160 km (75 to 100 miles) above the Earth. This low vantage point allowed ... More (Source: Ars Technica - Mar 4)
