Satellite News

The Land Launch Zenit-3SLB system successfully inserted Telesat’s Telstar 11N communications satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit from the Zenit launch site at the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan. All systems performed as planned.

Measat Satellite Systems Sdn Bhd announced that it has received confirmation from Intelsat Corporation (which in this case acts as launch services provider) that the Measat-3a satellite has been scheduled for launch in June 2009.

Launch of NASA’s Kepler telescope is targeted for no earlier than 7 March from Pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, USA. There are two launch windows, 0349-0352 UTC and 0413-0416 UTC.

Defence News recently reported that the United Arab Emirates were negotiating a commercial deal with Israel that would grant the Emirate of Abu Dhabi access to the Israeli-built Eros B satellite. UAE officials rejected the report and said the country chose Thales Alenia Space (Italy) as “strategic partner.”

Northrop Grumman Corporation has successfully completed thermal vacuum testing of the second geosynchronous orbit (GEO-2) payload for the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS).

Northrop Grumman Corporation delivered the final flight module cooler assemblies for the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) sensor to ITT Corporation.

The UK Office of Communications (Ofcom) said it will ask the International Telecommunication Organisation (ITU) to cancel the assignments for ICO’s non-geostationary satellite system (ICO-P).

“Great advertising … I’d say that was some of the best advertising I could have gotten, though I wouldn’t do that again if I could help it.” — Iridium CEO Matt Desch commenting the crash of one of his company’s satellites with Kosmos 2251