/sci/ - Science & Math

Vega launches a dozen smallsats, Azerbaijan signs up to China’s international moon base project
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https://spacenews.com/vega-launches-a-dozen-smallsats/
> WASHINGTON — A Vega rocket successfully launched a dozen small satellites Oct. 8 while its more powerful version remains grounded for another year.
> The Vega rocket lifted off from the European spaceport at Kourou, French Guiana, at 9:36 p.m. Eastern.
> The two largest payloads on the launch were THEOS-2 and FORMOSAT-7R/TRITON, both placed in sun-synchronous orbits between 600 and 617 kilometers nearly 55 minutes after liftoff.
> The Vega carried 10 secondary payloads, cubesats ranging in size from 3U to 12U. The satellites come from a variety of European developers, including those supported by the European Space Agency and European Union, primarily for technology demonstration purposes. Those satellites were released 1 hour and 44 minutes after liftoff, although Arianespace said in an Oct. 9 statement that it was still awaiting confirmation of the deployment of two of the cubesats.
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https://spacenews.com/azerbaijan-signs-up-to-chinas-international-moon-base-project/
> HELSINKI — Azerbaijan signed up to China’s International Lunar Research Station project Tuesday, on the sidelines of a major international space conference.
> China has now attracted around 15 signatories to its ILRS initiative, according to representatives of the Deep Space Exploration Laboratory (DSEL) under the CNSA. However, a list of these partners is not yet available. The partners are known to consist of organizations and institutions as well as countries.
> China and Russia presented a joint ILRS roadmap in 2021 in St. Petersburg. Beijing has however since apparently taken the role of lead of the project since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.