Satellite News

Space shuttle Discovery’s launch to the International Space Station on the STS-119 mission now is targeted for no earlier than 15 March (UTC).

ViaSat, Inc. switched the launch service provider for its planned ViaSat 1 satellite for financial reasons, the company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

North Korea told two U.N. agencies it plans to launch the experimental communications satellite Kwangmyongsong No. 2 between 4 and 8 April. Meanwhile, South Korea has postponed the first launch of its KSLV-1 rocket.

With lift-off just five days away, ESA’s GOCE spacecraft – encased in the protective half-shells of the launcher fairing – has been transported from the cleanroom and installed in the launch tower at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.

RazakSAT, Malaysia’s first remote sensing satellite, will be blasted into space from Kwajalein Island on 21 April.

Eutelsat Communications has selected Thales Alenia Space to build the W3C satellite. Eutelsat will select the launcher for the satellite separately at a later stage, the company said.

The Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor (APS), an advanced scientific instrument that will be launched on the Glory satellite, has successfully completed environmental testing and was officially turned over to NASA on 11 March by the Raytheon Company, which built the instrument.

NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter has properly followed commands to shut down and restart, a strategy by its engineers to clear any memory flaws accumulated in more than five years since Odyssey’s last reboot.