The European Space Agency (ESA) has selected Airbus to design and build a space weather forecasting satellite known as Vigil for what will ESA’s first mission in its Space Situational Awareness (SSA) Programme boosting space safety. Once in orbit, Vigil will provide vital early warning abut space weather, particularly solar [read more]
Vigin Galactic has announced that it will start commercial space flights this month marking the start of its monthly commercial spaceflight operation. The first commercial spaceflight, Galactic 01, is targeting a launch window of 27th June to 30th June which will be followed by a 2nd flight in August and [read more]
Richard Branson has said he is shutting down Virgin Orbit months after the companies first launch ended in failure. The idea of Virgin Orbit was to use a rocket launched from a Boeing 747 to deliver small satellites into orbit but the launch ended in disappointment when the first rocket [read more]
Virgin Orbit made history tonight when the rocket “Launcher One” was successfully dropped from its Boeing 747-400 mothership over the Atlantic. The Boeing 747 Cosmic Girl N744VG (formerly known as G-VWOW with Virgin Atlantic) swapped passengers for rockets as it left Spaceport Cornwall, Newquay just after 10 pm this evening. [read more]
Spaceport Cornwall is set to see the first orbital launch from UK soil when Launcher One is released from a Boeing 747 over the Atlantic this evening. Virgin Orbit is the team behind the launch which will see their former Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400 G-VWOW, known as “Cosmic Girl” throughout [read more]
The European Space Agencies (ESA) European Space Module (ESM) is set to be rocketed into space on Monday as part of the Artemis project, NASA’s return to the moon. A key part of the Orion Spacecraft, the airbus built European Space Module provides the “heart and lungs” for astronaut missions [read more]
One of the most anticipated new pieces of Space hardware has arrived in French Guiana ahead of its scheduled launch on 18th December. The Webb Space Telescope (WST) is an orbiting infrared telescope that, Jean-Marc Nasr, Head of Airbus Space Systems, “will change the way we see the universe”. About [read more]
The Royal Navy (RN) has awarded Airbus a 12month extension on a contract to carry out satellite based maritime surveillance for the Joint Maritime Security Centre (JMSC). The system uses a combination of optical and radar imaging as well as Automatic Identification System (AIS) data to provide reports about vessels [read more]
Today marks the anniversary of a significant leap in development in the “Space Race”.Sixty years ago today a human left the surface of earth and climbed beyond our atmosphere in an event that would change history and, in doing so, generate a global excitement that set our species on a [read more]
The number of off-world projects currently in development is staggering.Earlier this month China’s Chang-E 5 landed on the moon to collect up to 2kg of regolith samples and return them to Earth. This is a short mission – Get up, Get rocks, Get home – but even this takes years [read more]
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