Over the last decade, small satellites have revolutionized the space industry while influencing life on Earth in ways as varied as providing broadband access, monitoring infrastructure, improving weather forecasting, and supporting the war effort in Ukraine. Borne out of low-cost launch, the cubesat standard, and a more permissive attitude toward […]
Smallsat
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LOGAN, Utah — SpaceX is offering a second class of rideshare missions on its Falcon 9 rocket to serve customers seeking to go to mid-inclination orbits. During a presentation at the 37th Annual Small Satellite Conference here Aug. 9, Jarrod McLachlan, director of rideshare sales at SpaceX, said the company […]
LOGAN, Utah — In-space transportation company Momentus is now offering a version of its Vigoride tug as a satellite bus for commercial and government customers. The company announced Aug. 2 that it was now offering customers a bus called the M-1000. The bus is similar to the Vigoride orbital transfer […]
TAMPA, Fla. — LeoStella announced details about its largest spacecraft yet Aug. 6 with plans to deliver its first two 500-kilogram-class satellites to a commercial radar constellation customer next summer. The company’s LS300 satellite bus can reach the length of a small yacht at 10 meters across and has more […]
WASHINGTON — NASA has canceled a mission to send a pair of smallsats to binary asteroids and will put the nearly completed spacecraft into storage for a potential future opportunity. NASA announced July 11 that it was concluding the Janus mission and planned to put the spacecraft into long-term storage. […]
NEW YORK — A SpaceX Falcon 9 launched several dozen smallsats on a dedicated rideshare mission June 12, with customers ranging from the U.S. Space Force to startups deploying their first satellites. The Falcon 9 lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 5:35 p.m. Eastern on the Transporter-8 mission. […]
The company plans to launch its first Xcraft small satellite in late 2023 on a SpaceX rideshare WASHINGTON — Xplore, a startup based in Redmond, Washington, announced Jan. 31 it was granted a remote-sensing license from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for the company’s first mission to low […]
SAN FRANCISCO — GeoOptics Inc. won a NASA contract worth a maximum of $7 million over five years to provide researchers with data acquired by the company’s small satellite constellation. The contract, announced Nov. 14, was GeoOptics’ first as part of NASA’s Commercial SmallSat Data Acquisition program. Pasadena, Calif.-based GeoOptics […]