Browse Resources by Year

2016 – Sounding Rockets – Snapshot

Government sounding rocket programs, such as NASA’s Sounding Rockets Program Office (SRPO), use sounding rockets as training tools for future engineers and scientists. More launch opportunities…

2016 – Suborbital Payload Launch – Snapshot

In May 2016, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully launched a Reusable Launch Vehicle-Technology Demonstrator (RLV-TD)…

2016 – Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Systems – Snapshot

As the world’s population continued integrating space positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) technologies and services, the number of PNT satellites continued to multiply in 2016, growing slightly more than ##% from 2015. Relative newcomers to PNT space operations, such as Europe, India, and China, grew their PNT constellations, each building an independent…

2016 – Communications Satellites – Snapshot

The launch of Telstar 1 in July 1962 brought a novel way to communicate between continents and people. Despite changes in technology since then, the type of communications associated with Telstar 1, the television broadcast, is very much the kind of…

2016 – Satellite Overview – Snapshot

Traditional satellite missions, such as Earth observation, communications, and positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), continued dominating the global space industry, but other missions are coming forward. Air traffic control and ship traffic monitoring satellites are increasing as more governments and organizations recognize the usefulness of these missions. Radio occultation using…

2016 – U.S. Space Surveillance Network (SSN)

The U.S. Space Surveillance Network (SSN) was originally designed to alert deployed U.S. sailors of a possible spy satellite’s approach. It also served as a way to prevent irreversible…

2016 – Spaceports – Snapshot

For 2016, the busiest orbital spaceport in the world was ####, ahead of ## other operational orbital spaceports during the year. The spaceport accounted for…

2016 – Orbital Launch Reports and Forecasts – Snapshot

After many years of conducting launch operations in more or less the same way, the orbital launch industry is experiencing substantial changes on some fronts. In December 2015, one U.S. company was the first to successfully conduct an orbital launch of satellites, then have the space launch vehicle’s (SLV’s) first stage return and land safely on the ground…

2016 – Russia: SSA – Snapshot

The Russian Space Surveillance System (RSSS) consists of a network of ground-based radars and optical telescopes, operated by the Russian Defense Ministry’s Space Control Center (TSKKP), which is responsible for the nation’s space situational awareness (SSA). The RSSS sensors give the nation the ability to…

2016 – Space Employment – Snapshot

Exhibit 3U provides a snapshot of the workforce sizes in space agencies around the world. Direct comparisons among agencies should be avoided or undertaken with care, as differences…