A series of new CubeSats now are in space, conducting a variety of scientific investigations and technology demonstrations, following launch on Dec. 16, 2018, of Rocket Lab's first mission for NASA under a Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) contract.
SkySats 14 and 15 were launched on Dec. 3, 2018, from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Spaceflight's first Sun Synchronous dedicated rideshare mission aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9.
NSR's Small Satellite Markets, 5thEdition forecasts the market to yield $37 billion in cumulative revenues from smallsat manufacturing and launch services by 2027, with 6,500 smallsats set to launch during this time.
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) shot this photograph of the Horn of Africa, the easternmost portion of the continent.
Integral was initially preparing for astronomical research when it spied this aurora; the probe was planning to observe the skies at X-ray wavelengths to measure something known as the cosmic X-ray background, a diffuse level of radiation that pervades the cosmos and is linked to high-energy events such as black holes devouring nearby material in far-away galaxies.
On Nov. 1, 2018, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured a false-color view of flooding along the Nueces River in a series of storms that have delivered historic amounts of rain to central Texas.
SimActive Inc. partnered with Midwest Aerial to perform damage assessment of Hurricane Michael.
SSL, a Maxar Technologies company, shipped two Earth-observation satellites to Vandenberg Air Force Base where they will be launched on Spaceflight's first sun-synchronous dedicated rideshare mission on Nov. 19, 2018, aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle.
NASA's Aqua and Suomi satellites provided views of Hurricane Willa as it continued moving toward landfall in western Mexico.
Over the southeast Atlantic Ocean, a 2,000-mile-long plume of smoke from African agricultural fires meets a near-permanent cloud bank offshore.
