SpaceX launch capacity for its dedicated smallsat rideshare missions on the Falcon 9 is full through 2023 and “pretty full” in 2024 as the missions are in high demand, Jarrod McLachlan, SpaceX director of rideshare sales, told SmallSat attendees on Tuesday.  Smallsat companies hoping to get to orbit in 2023 and 2024 should still reach…

Northrop Grumman has teamed up with Firefly Aerospace to provide an American-built first-stage upgrade for the Antares rocket and a new medium-lift launch vehicle to serve commercial, civil, and national security space launch markets. The two companies announced the collaboration Aug. 8. The 200 series of the Antares rocket, developed Orbital Sciences Corporation, now part…

This episode of On Orbit is being released on a big news day for U.S. space rideshare provider, Spaceflight Inc. Spaceflight has shipped its brand new fully integrated Sherpa-LTC orbital transfer vehicle to Cape Canaveral for launch on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and signed a deal with Arianespace to launch on Vega missions as soon as…

The U.S. Space Force on Aug. 4 launched the sixth Lockheed Martin Space Based Infrared System Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (SBIRS GEO)-6 satellite, the final planned SBIRS missile warning satellite, from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. Northrop Grumman built the SBIRS GEO payloads. “The need for Overhead Persistent Infrared…