Satellite News

China’s Xinhua news agency said that the launch of the country’s latest heavy-lift carrier rocket, the Chang Zheng-5 Y2, was unsuccessful. The report stated that “Abnormity was detected during the flight of the rocket, which blasted off at [1123 UTC on 2 July] from Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern province of Hainan. Further investigation will be carried out.”

The story of the recently failed AMC-9 satellite got another twist over the weekend as it became known that the spacecraft was accompanied by several pieces of debris. It is unknown whether these pieces were shed by the satellite or whether they are of a different origin. Meanwhile, satellite operator said it hat made some contact with AMC-9 but wouldn’t confirm it was in full control of the spacecraft.

SpaceX called off the launch of Intelsat 35e from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) 10 seconds before lift-off on 2 July owing to to a technical issue with the Falcon 9 rocket.

The U.S. Air Force released a final Request for Proposal for an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Launch Service supporting the Air Force Space Command (AFSPC)-8, AFSPC-12 and GPS III 4-6 missions.