Iridium will move to absorb the majority of Boeing‘s team of workers who provide operations and maintenance support to Iridium satellites beginning Jan. 3, 2017 as part of an insourcing agreement signed between the two companies. Both companies restructured their current partnership as Iridium prepares to launch and transition into the NEXT satellite broadband service, the satellite communications firm said Wednesday. Iridium will pay a […] More

SpaceX noted that it has discovered a way to replicate the conditions of the helium tank when a Falcon 9 rocket exploded Sept. 1 as part of ongoing work to determine the root cause of the incident, Space News reported Friday. Jeff Foust writes SpaceX looks to focus its investigation efforts on tanks made from fiber composite […] More

Iridium Communications remains on schedule to launch the first 10 satellites of the Iridium NEXT constellation in July aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, Space News reported Friday. Peter de Selding writes the initial launch date may change by a few weeks based on SpaceX’s availability and will be followed by six sets of 10 satellites that are expected to […] More

Los Angeles-based Relativity Space has raised $500M in a round of Series D financing led by Tiger Global Management and will use the funds to advance the development of its launch vehicle, 3D printing technologies and other programs. “We are on track to launch our first Terran 1 rocket to orbit next year with existing capital on our balance sheet," said Tim Ellis, co-founder and CEO of Relativity Space.

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OneWeb has received approval from the Federal Communications Commission to add 1,280 V-Band satellites to the former's proposed constellation in non-geostationary orbit, Via Satellite reported Wednesday.

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OneWeb employed a Soyuz launch vehicle to deploy 34 satellites from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

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Executive Mosaic is honored to introduce John Goodman, president of Accenture Federal Services, as an inductee into the 2019 edition of Wash100 — Executive Mosaic’s annual selection of influential leaders in the government contracting arena — for his efforts advancing digital technologies and intelligence distributed systems. This marks Goodman’s second consecutive Wash100 award. 

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Iridium Communications has changed its target launch date for a seventh batch of NEXT communications satellites to July 25. The company said Tuesday it rescheduled the Iridium-7 mission in order to give SpaceX more time to prepare the rocket that will carry the satellites into orbit. SpaceX launched the sixth NEXT batch May 22 from Vandenberg Air Force Base […] More

Maxar Technologies’ SSL subsidiary built and provided the transceiver assembly components for a pair of Microwave Ranging Instruments that took off in May as part of the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On mission of NASA and the German Research Center for Geosciences. Al Tadros, vice president of SSL’s space infrastructure and civil space, wrote […] More

Iridium Communications plans to launch on July 20 the seventh batch of 10 Iridium NEXT satellites aboard a SpaceX-built Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The planned launch would bring the total number of Iridium NEXT satellites in orbit to 65 under a potential $3 billion communications satellite constellation replacement program that […] More

The five Iridium Communications satellites that Hawthorne, Calif.-based firm SpaceX launched Tuesday have entered the testing and validation phase. “Three of the [Iridium NEXT] satellites from this launch will be going directly in to service in our sixth orbital plane, where the other two will serve as spares,” Iridium Chief Operating Officer Scott Smith said in a […] More

Inmarsat has secured approval from the International Maritime Organization’s maritime safety committee to support the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System through its Fleet Safety service offering. The company said Tuesday it will deliver its maritime safety service through Inmarsat-4 and Inmarsat-6 satellite constellations. The approval would allow ship operators adopting Inmarsat’s Fleet One terminals and […] More