Satellite News

Japan’s attempt to launch the SS-520, one of the smallest-ever rockets, has ended in failure shortly after lift-off at around 2330 UTC on 14 January from Uchinoura Space Center.

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: 10 Iridium NEXT satellites; Date: 14 January 2017, 1754 UTC; Launch site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, USA. The satellites were delivered into low-Earth orbit approximately one hour after the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off.

For the first time, an optical clock has travelled to space, surviving harsh rocket launch conditions and successfully operating under the microgravity that would be experienced on a satellite. This demonstration brings optical clock technology much closer to implementation in space, where it could eventually allow GPS-based navigation with centimeter-level location precision.

Orbital ATK announced that its Cygnus spacecraft successfully unberthed from the International Space Station, starting the second phase of its mission before it reenters Earth’s atmosphere.

The launch of the Russian Proton-M due to deliver the EchoStar XXI (EchoStar 21) satellite into orbit has been rescheduled from November to December, International Launch Services announced on its official website.

The Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) system and Milstar satellites have achieved 100 years of combined successful operations.

On 21 August 2016, contact was reestablished with one of NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatories, known as the STEREO-B spacecraft, after communications were lost on 1 October 2014.

Lockheed Martin has shipped the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) newest weather satellite, GOES-R, to its Astrotech Space Operations facility in Titusville, Florida.