Arianespace named Pierre-Yves Tissier new chief technical officer, as current CTO Roland Lagier is retiring. Arianespace announced the change as immediate on Wednesday.  Tissier has been deputy CTO of Arianespace since 2017 and has also served as head of Propulsion and deputy head of Launchers in Production. He has worked for Bertin Technologies, the Ariane…

Smallsats increasingly define the commercial space launch market, with a desire for independent access to space driving a new push by small launchers around the world. The number of small satellites orbiting to space worldwide tripled from 2019 to 2020, with smallsats representing 94 percent of spacecraft launched that year, according to Statista and Bryce…

Thursday was a big day for commercial space launch in the U.S., as Virgin Orbit followed SpaceX’s rideshare mission from Florida in the morning with a launch from California in the afternoon.  The mission “Above the Clouds” took off at 1:38 p.m. PST from the Mojave Air and Space Port. In Virgin Orbit’s air-launch method,…

SpaceX performed its first rideshare mission of the year on Thursday morning, deploying 105 spacecraft on a Falcon 9 vehicle. The mission, dubbed Transporter-3, was the third in SpaceX’s dedicated rideshare program.  The Falcon 9 rocket took off from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 10:25 a.m. EST.…