Satellite News

The space shuttle Endeavour crew is expected to complete its mission to the International Space Station with a landing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1819 UTC on 30 November. This will conclude a 16-day flight, 11 of which were spent docked to the station.

Measat Satellite Systems Sdn. Bhd. announced that the Measat-3a satellite has been returned safely to the U.S. for repairs.

The Committee on Science and Technology of Nigeria’s House of Representatives said that an investigative hearing on the failed NigComSat-1 communication satellite would open in Abuja next week, The Punch reported.

Satellite News Digest in its 24 November 2008 issue quoted a report by Nigerian newspaper Daily Independent that mentioned certain companies involved in the insurance of the failed NigComSat 1 satellite. One of these mentioned by the paper, SpaceCo of France, said in an e-mail that “the information you have quoted is extremely misleading and does not reflect the actual facts.” The company did not explain this any further. — Editor’s note: Sat-ND never claimed that SpaceCo (or any other of the companies mentioned) was actually providing cover for NigComSat 1. We are sorry for any misconception our article may have caused. What we correctly said (and what should be obvious upon careful reading) was that a Nigerian newspaper published a report that mentioned SpaceCo, amongst others, in this context. A URL for that article was also given so that any interested party could access the Daily Independent’s article immediately. […]

The Proton M launch vehicle that will launch the next trio of GLONASS-M satellites was delivered by rail to Tyura Tam station in Kazakhstan from Khrunichev Space Center’s manufacturing facility in Moscow, Russia.

ISRO officials maintain that the higher-than-expected temperatures aboard the Chandrayaan 1 moon probe poses no danger to the scientific instruments on board. Delaying the start of scientific operations was a purely precautionary measure, they said.

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.