Satellite News

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said investigators had figured out why a Falcon 9 rocket burst into flames on 1 September as it was being fuelled for a routine, preflight test. The accident destroyed the US$200 million Israeli communications satellite Amos 6 and grounded the Falcon 9 fleet for the second time in 14 months.

Analytical Graphics, Inc.’s (AGI) Commercial Space Operations Center (ComSpOC) said that it is tracking two apparent payloads of the recent Chang Zheng 5 launch, one of which is the reported Shijian-17 experimental satellite.

Space Systems Loral (SSL) and Hughes Network Systems, a subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation, announced that the EchoStar XIX satellite, which SSL designed and built for Hughes, has arrived at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, where it will be launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle.

Airbus Defence and Space has finished construction of the first of the two GRACE-FO (GRACE = Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, FO = Follow-On) satellites in Friedrichshafen, Germany. The satellite will now be transferred to Ottobrunn near Munich for several months of operational testing in the IABG test centre.

ESA has selected Italian company Leonardo to build the main instrument for the upcoming FLEX satellite to study the health of Earth’s vegetation.