Satellite News

Rocket: Soyuz-U; Payload: Progress M-01M (Progress P31); Date: 26 November 2008, 1238 UTC; Site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The transport vessel was successfully placed in its target orbit.

Kosmotras is preparing to launch the Ukrainian Sich-2 remote sensing satellite in late 2009 or early 2010 aboard a Dnepr rocket – more than two years later than originally planned.

The Operational Land Imager (OLI) being built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. for the Landsat Data Continuity Mission (LDCM), the eighth in the Landsat satellite series, has successfully passed the Instrument Critical Design Review (ICDR).

Goodrich Corporation has received a contract from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for the first operational satellite system in support of Operationally Responsive Space (ORS).

Ministers from 19 ESA member states have agreed to commit EUR9.65 billion (US$12.8 billion) to Europe’s space programme.

SES S.A.announced a multi-year agreement to provide satellite capacity to EchoStar Corporation.

“It is a usual phenomena [sic] because it is summer on the moon. There is nothing to worry. … By the first week of December, the atmosphere will become benign on the moon.” — An ISRO spokesman commenting the higher-than-expected temperature aboard the Chandrayaan 1 moon probe