Satellite News

Rocket: Zenit-3SLB; Payload: Intelsat-15; Date: 30 November 2009, 2100 UTC; Launch Site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The rocket lifted off successfully after a 24-hour delay. However, separation of the payload was scheduled for more than five hours after lift-off – too late for this issue.

SES S.A. and Astrium announced that SES has ordered four multi-mission satellites from Astrium to provide replacement as well as incremental capacity for its SES Astra and SES World Skies divisions.

The last of the three GLONASS-M navigation spacecraft intended for cluster 41 was delivered to Baikonur on 27 November 2009 by Information Satellite Systems Reshetnev.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has been selected by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center to build a second Global Precipitation Measurement Microwave Imager (GMI) in support of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission.

Space insurers are expected to generate more than US$400 million in profit for 2009 provided there are no claims before the end of the year, according to Aon’s International Space Brokers (ISB), the largest specialist risk adviser in this sector.

COM DEV International Ltd. has replaced the head of its Canadian unit, George Cwynar, after warning of disappointing quarterly results due to cost overruns related to two domestic government contracts.

Despite difficulties caused by the global financial crisis, “financing of the space industry has always been and will remain sufficient,” Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.