Tag Archives: SmallSat

Executive Mosaic is pleased to introduce Christopher Scolese, director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), as a recipient of the 2021 Wash100 Award, the top prize in all of government contracting (GovCon), for his leadership in the COVID-19 pandemic response and relief as well as the advancement of U.S. space exploration and development of IT technology capabilities. 

Astra Space has secured a $7.9 million contract to help NASA launch six CubeSat small satellites designed to help meteorologists study storms. The company's Rocket 3 launch vehicle will carry the smallsats to space as part of the space agency's Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation Structure and Storm Intensity with a Constellation of SmallSats or TROPICS mission, NASA said Saturday.

Jim McClelland, vice president of mission architecture at Maxar Technologies, said the small satellite industry is now more willing to take some risks, launch and learn from those launches driven by technological advances in smallsats, SpaceNews reported Wednesday. “It's been a very exciting transformation of the industry,“ he said. “I have to actually, oddly enough, give a lot of credit to the cubesat guys."

SpaceX has sent its Falcon 9 launch vehicle to orbit carrying 143 spacecraft including 10 small satellites that will serve as part of the company's Starlink broadband constellation, CNBC reported Sunday.

SpaceX has received approval from the Federal Communications Commission to launch 10 Starlink satellites into polar orbit using a Falcon 9 rocket as part of the Transporter-1 small satellite rideshare mission, SpaceNews reported Saturday.

NASA has selected Astra Space, Relativity Space and Firefly Black to launch different types of small satellites under contracts with a combined value of $16.7M. The companies will send to space nanosatellites, CubeSats and other types of small satellites under the Venture Class Launch Services Demonstration 2 effort, the space agency said Saturday.

Lockheed Martin has partnered with the University of Colorado Boulder to launch twin spacecraft that will rendezvous with binary asteroids for a NASA mission in 2022.

Debra Facktor, a board member at an Airbus and OneWeb joint venture, has said the JV is working on a new batch of satellites to support long-term efforts to expand its clientele, SpaceNews reported Sunday.

Two executives from Planet and L3Harris Technologies have cited electronic components and thermal management systems as key factors to the improvement of small-satellite technologies in the market, SpaceNews reported Thursday.

Rocket Lab has updated its Electron launch vehicle that now enables it to carry up to 660 pounds of payload to low orbits and 441 pounds to sun-synchronous orbits or 310.1 miles.

The U.S. Air Force and L3Harris Technologies have launched a small satellite that will serve as part of a constellation intended to support end-to-end communications and on-orbit imaging operations.

The National Reconnaissance Office has awarded Rocket Lab a contract to send small satellites to orbit as part of two back-to-back missions in spring 2021.

Rocket Lab has launched satellites from NASA, the National Reconnaissance Office and the Australian government as part of a rideshare mission dubbed “Don't Stop Me Now," C4ISRNET reported Sunday.

Rocket Lab's Electron launch vehicle is slated to send satellite payloads from NASA, the National Reconnaissance Office and the Australian government to orbit as part of the “Don't Stop Me Now“ mission in early June.

An industry group of small-satellite technology firms is calling on the U.S. government to allocate funding for space-based national security programs to thwart adversaries while driving operational use for space products.