Satellite News

Designed to spot terrestrial targets and built in a matter of months, Raytheon Company’s first rapid-development space-optical payload was delivered recently to the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.

OHB-System AG has recently been awarded a contract by the German Federal Office of Defence Technology and Procurement (BWB), Koblenz, for the implementation of the European satellite-based reconnaissance system.

NASA’s Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions During Substorms (THEMIS) spacecraft has arrived in Florida to begin final testing and launch preparations. THEMIS is scheduled to lift off on 15 February aboard a Delta II rocket from Launch Complex 17-B on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The Minotaur I rocket with TacSat 2 and GeneSat 1 aboard will be launched no earlier than 15 December.

Rocket: Proton M/Briz M; Payload: Measat 3; Date: 11 December 2006, 2328 UTC; Launch Site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The mission lasted 9 hours and 12 minutes before Measat 3 was released into a geosynchronous transfer orbit.