SpaceNews.com
• Jeff Foust
Rocket Lab launched a radar-imaging satellite for Japanese company Synspective on Sept. 18, marking the fifth Electron mission in roughly six weeks. The flight underscores the company’s accelerating launch cadence as it supports commercial Earth-observation customers with dedicated small-launch services.
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Rocket Lab launched a radar-imaging satellite for Japanese company Synspective on Sept. 18, marking the fifth Electron mission in roughly six weeks. The flight underscores the company’s accelerating launch cadence as it supports commercial Earth-observation customers with dedicated small-launch services.
ViaSat said its third and final terabit-class ViaSat-3 broadband satellite has entered service over the Americas. The milestone came days after SpaceX launched the final three satellites for SES’s O3b mPower constellation, marking the completion of both operators’ major network deployment campaigns.
The Defense Innovation Unit selected Northrop Grumman and True Anomaly to develop prototype satellites designed to closely monitor spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit, advancing a U.S. military effort to improve surveillance and awareness in the strategically important geostationary regime.
Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited has contracted Hughes Network Systems to provide access to its Jupiter scalable gateway system for the upcoming NIGCOMSAT-2A and NIGCOMSAT-2B satellites. The infrastructure will support satellite services targeting markets across Africa.
High activity
Viasat has placed ViaSat-3 F2 into service over the Americas, completing the company’s three-satellite geostationary constellation. The milestone brings the full ViaSat-3 network online for customer data services, following F3’s commercial activation across the Asia-Pacific region and the final commissioning of F2 and F3.
More than three months after SpaceX’s industry-shaking IPO, satellite broadband operators are assessing its far-reaching and mixed effects. The market response is adding pressure to evaluate competitive positioning, financing conditions and long-term strategy across the satellite communications sector.
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