SpaceX teams working at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California were finalizing preparations Tuesday ahead of the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday carrying a trio of Canadian-built radar observation satellites into orbit.
NASA has selected Maxar Technologies for a $375 million contract to design, build and launch the core element of a mini-space station in orbit around the moon that will double as a deep space research outpost and a staging point for future human expeditions to the lunar surface.
DigitalGlobe’s WorldView 4 commercial Earth observation satellite, which launched in 2016 for a planned 10-to-12-year mission, has suffered a failure in its control moment gyros and is no longer able to acquire high-resolution imagery, officials announced Monday.
Two Falcon 9 rockets with reused first stage boosters will place the initial block of DigitalGlobe’s commercial WorldView Legion satellite fleet in orbit in 2021, the Earth-imaging company recently announced.