Cygnus

Humanity’s first “space nation”, Asgardia, is a step closer to getting off the ground after its first satellite was launched last week. The end goal is for millions of people to live on satellites, but don’t pack your bags just yet: Asgardia-1 is just a CubeSat carrying 500 GB of pictures and text.

Orbital Sciences Corporation today successfully launched the first of eight Cygnus cargo supply missions to the International Space Station (ISS). Cygnus is flying solo now, with full communications and deployed solar arrays, toward a January 12 rendezvous and docking with the ISS.