Author: starpathwp-production
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Launch Roundup: Starlink missions fill launch manifest, Biomass and Alpha launch
JThis week’s schedule included up to six Starlink launches from Florida and California, but poor weather meant only four flew. Arianespace launched the Biomass satellite aboard a Vega C from Kourou, and Firefly Aerospace attempted to launch its first Alpha rocket of the year. SpaceX has already launched 50 times this year and celebrated its…
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BAE Systems Selected for Space Force Missile Warning Satellites
BAE Systems has been selected by U.S. Space Force Space Systems Command to provide a new satellite command and control (C2) system for its Future Operationally Resilient Ground Evolution (FORGE) program. FORGE C2 will provide the Space Force with a command-and-control system for several of its Next-Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next-Gen OPIR) missile warning satellites. In…
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Firefly Mission Loses Lockheed Martin LM 400 Satellite in Anomaly
A Firefly Aerospace Alpha rocket suffered an anomaly during a Tuesday launch, losing the payload for customer Lockheed Martin. The Alpha FLTA006 mission launched at 6:37 am PDT from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. It was carrying Lockheed Martin’s LM 400 tech demonstration satellite, which fell into the Pacific Ocean. Firefly Aerospace issued a post-launch…
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Satellite Manufacturer Apex Raises $200M to Pursue Vertical Integration
Flush with demand for its standardized spacecraft buses and seeking to speed production, Apex on Tuesday said it has raised $200 million in a Series C round that will be put toward designing and developing more subsystems and components in-house, and holding on to more inventory of components and finished products, the startup said on Tuesday. The…
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United Launch Alliance Successfully Launches Amazon’s First Operational Satellites
United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket carrying the Kuiper-1 mission for Amazon’s Project Kuiper lifted off on April 28 at 7:01 p.m. EDT from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The Kuiper 1 launch marks the beginning of full-scale deployment of the Kuiper constellation and a new chapter in the commercial launch…
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AST SpaceMobile Partners with NSF to Co-ordinate Satellite and Astronomy Communications
AST SpaceMobile, the company building the first and only space-based cellular broadband network accessible directly by everyday smartphones, designed for both commercial and government applications, announced it has signed a Coordination Agreement with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to implement best practices between satellite communications and ground-based optical, infrared, and radio astronomy observations. Under…
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ThrustMe: Pioneering Sustainable In-Orbit Propulsion with Iodine Innovation
ThrustMe is a trailblazer in the field of advanced in-orbit propulsion systems, Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Verrières-le-Buisson, France. The company specializes in developing innovative propulsion solutions for satellites, with a strong emphasis on sustainability and efficiency. ThrustMe’s core mission is to revolutionize space mobility by providing reliable and eco-friendly propulsion technologies. Collaborations with…
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Tuesday Telescope: Yes, you can see stars in space, and they’re spectacular
Welcome to the Tuesday Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light—a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We’ll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we’ll take a different route, finding inspiration from very real images of a universe that is…
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What’s it like to be 70 years old in space? “All those little aches and pains heal up.”
Not many people celebrate their birthday by burning a fiery arc through the atmosphere, pulling 4.4gs in freefall back to planet Earth, thudding into the ground, and emptying their stomach on the steppes of Kazakhstan. No one has ever done it on their 70th birthday. Perhaps this is appropriate because NASA astronaut Don Pettit is…
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Arianespace Launches Forest Monitoring Satellite in Vega C Mission for ESA
Arianespace has completed its second major launch of the year and the first involving its Vega C launcher in 2025. It has launched the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Earth Explorer Biomass satellite. The Biomass satellite has interesting capabilities when it comes to monitoring climate change and will use its P-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) instrument…