Satellite News

Rocket: Delta IV; Payload: WGS-3; Date: 6 December 2009, 0147 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. The military communication satellite separated from the launcher approx. 41 minutes after lift-off as planned.

Roskosmos has confirmed that the first launch of the new Angara rocket, which had been scheduled for 2011, have been put back by one year owing to lack of financing.

OHB Technology has won a contract to build eight Galileo satellites, according to sources close to the European Commission. The Commission had said earlier it would order a total of 22 spacecraft before the end of 2009. However, there’s no word on the other 14 satellites yet.

The European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) is still looking for money to start the construction of Jason-3, a satellite that would continue the long-term survey of Earth’s oceans that started 1992 with the TOPEX/Poseidon mission and was continued by Jason-1 and Jason-2.