California-based launch and internet service provider SpaceX sent a new batch of Starlink internet satellites into orbit aboard a Falcon 9 rocket launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday morning. The rocket carried 60 new satellites to join SpaceX's constellation, which now totals more than 1,000 satellites operating in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). The Falcon…

Virgin Orbit successfully deployed 10 payloads for NASA’s Launch Services Program (LSP) during the California-based company's second demonstration of its LauncherOne spacecraft on Sunday, Jan. 17. The LauncherOne was deployed by means of an "air launch" method. A customized 747-400 aircraft named Cosmic Girl took off from Mojave Air and Space Port in New Mexico…

Exotrail had a successful first cubesat mission equipped with ExoMG Hall-effect electric propulsion technology, the company reported Jan. 12. The company completed an in-orbit demonstration mission launched to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) on Nov. 7 last year, onboard a Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) PSLV rocket. Exotrail nominally ignited its ExoMG electric propulsion system on the…

Intuitive Machines has selected SpaceX to launch its NASA-backed IM-2 Polar Mission to the Moon on a Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than 2022, the company announced Wednesday.  NASA awarded IM the $47 million contract under its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative in October 2020. IM will deliver NASA’s Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment…