SpaceX sent a batch of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit on Sept. 3 as the company looks toward public beta rollout of high-speed internet service this year.

Embattled aircraft connectivity provider Gogo will sell its commercial aviation unit to bankrupt satellite services provider Intelsat for $400 million in a deal that might help the latter return to a viable business while the former tries to avoid liquidation.

Arianespace is to operate its first rideshare mission for nano and microsatellites thanks to a Vega launch from Kourou, French Guiana, at 9:51 p.m. EDT on Sept. 1.

Turkey’s Roketsan has opened a new facility to support the development of a national satellite launcher.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral AFS on Aug. 30, sending an Argentine remote sensing satellite into a polar orbit, a flightpath from Florida that had not been used since 1969. 

Rocket Lab’s Electron small satellite launcher returned to flight on Aug. 30, sending a 220-lb. (100-kg) synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite into orbit for Capella Space, a San Francisco-based information services company.

The report calls on Congress to “enact, without delay, appropriations and any required authorities" for the Office of Space Commerce "to build this critical capability with requisite personnel, office infrastructure and authorities.”

Resources like the vast quantities of water ice believed to reside within shadowed craters at the Moon’s south and north poles promise to reduce the costs of initial exploration substantially.