Satellite News
Yahsat Contracts Airbus for New Al Yah Satellites
Al Yah Satellite Communications Company PJSC (Yahsat) has contracted Airbus Defence and Space for its new geostationary telecommunications satellites, Al Yah 4 (“AY4”) and Al Yah 5 (“AY5”).Airbus will design and build the AY4 and AY5 satellites based on the Eurostar Neo platform. Each satellite will have flexible payloads and benefit from the heritage of the Eurostar family. The payloads can be reconfigured in orbit, adjusting coverage, capacity, and frequency to meet changing mission needs.
Airbus is developing the Thuraya 4 (“T4”) satellite to serve Yahsat’s UAE government customer and Thuraya’s customers. The T4, also based on the Eurostar Neo platform, is set to launch in late 2024
Launcher News
Starship-flight-4-milestones-flight-5
Following the highly successful milestones achieved by Booster 11 and Ship 29 on Flight 4 of SpaceX’s Starship, engineers are already implementing lessons learned from the mission ahead of the next flight, including widescale changes to the Thermal Protection System (TPS). Although Elon Musk thinks the next flight is a month away, the Flight 5 pairing requires the reapplication of stronger tiles ahead of its mission.
Exploration News
NASA delays return of Starliner astronauts from space station
Starliner’s return to Earth is now delayed to June 22 or later. This is the second delay in Starliner’s return to Earth, following an announcement this week that the spacecraft would disembark from the ISS on June 18. The return mission originally was pushed forward to give ISS astronauts more time to perform a space walk originally planned for Thursday 13, but that mission was scrubbed an hour before it started because of what astronauts said was “spacesuit discomfort.”
NewSpace News
The first 5 Kinéis smallsats to be launched to orbit via Rocket Lab’s Electron launcher
Screenshot Kinéis is scheduled to deploy the 1st European constellation comprised of 25 nanosatellites and dedicated to IoT for June 18, 2024,
Planet’s first hyperspectral satellite is ready to launch
Will Marshall, Planet’s co-founder, CEO and chair, told investors the 30-meter resolution satellite will augment its optical constellation by collecting data in more than 400 spectral bands to capture phenomena invisible to the human eye.
Firefly Aerospace announces multi-launch agreement with Lockheed Martin
Under the agreement, Alpha will launch Lockheed Martin spacecraft into LEO from Firefly’s facilities on the west and east coast. The first mission will launch on Alpha flight 6 (FLTA006) from Firefly’s SLC-2 launch site at the Vandenberg Space Force Base later this year.
BlackSky awarded NRO contract
The U.S. government has built a new API-enabled commercial imagery ordering architecture designed to streamline and scale the ability to order and receive data products from commercial providers. BlackSky was the first commercial imagery provider to successfully integrate and validate performance of this architecture.
Synspective succeeds in test observation of daily InSAR images
Synspective Inc. has successfully tested observation of images for daily Interferometric Synthetic Aperture (InSAR) analysis with StriX-3, launched in March of 2024, and StriX-1, launched in September of 2022.
Mission completed for ESA’s OPS-SAT laboratory
The OPS-SAT concept has been adopted by the ESA ARTES ScyLight Strategic Program Line for a mission dedicated to testing new optical and quantum communication technologies, called OPS-SAT VOLT.
Space Safety News
Hubble goes to single-gyro operating mode as NASA passes on private servicing mission
NASA will extend the life of the Hubble Space Telescope by switching to a mode where the spacecraft operates on a single gyroscope, having rejected for now commercial proposals to reboost or repair it.
Science & Technology News
Ariane 6 to Launch SpaceCase SC-X01 for Heat Shield Demonstration
Europe’s newest rocket, Ariane 6, is set to launch soon, carrying multiple space missions with diverse objectives and destinations.
