ESA has announced the date of the first launch of their new Vega rocket: Feb 9 2011. The Vega launcher is a small inexpensive rocket designet to launch cargoes up to a few tonnes into orbit

Source: ESA

After spending more than 240 days "sailing" around the Earth, NASA's NanoSail-D - a nanosatellite that deployed NASA's first-ever solar sail in low-Earth orbit - has successfully completed its Earth orbiting mission.

ESA and Arianespace i aiming at january as launch-date for the first Vega-rocket. The small rocket is intended to carry small cargoes into space at a competitable price.

A US private space-company usually servicing US military satellittes has proposed a way to re-use decommisioned geostationary satelittes for communication puposes.