Satellite News

Rocket: Chang Zheng 3A; Payload: Beidou-2 IGSO-1; Date: 31 July 2010, 2130 UTC; Launch Site: Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China. The navigation satellite was successfully placed into an elliptical transfer orbit with an inclination of about 55 degrees.

A new liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen production plant is being readied for service at the Spaceport in French Guiana, supporting Arianespace’s sustained mission rate for the heavy-lift Ariane 5 and its upcoming introduction of the medium-lift Soyuz.

The Rascom-QAF1R and Nilesat 201 telecommunications satellites, designed and built by Thales Alenia Space, are now ready for launch.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has shipped the STPSat-2 satellite built for the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center, Space Development and Test Wing (SDTW) to Alaska’s Kodiak Launch Complex for scheduled lift-off aboard a Minotaur 4 rocket for an autumn 2010 launch.

Astrium has signed a contract worth EUR55.2 million with the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) for the development, manufacture and launch of an Earth observation optical satellite system.

NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have embarked on a joint programme to explore Mars in the coming decades and selected the five science instruments for the first mission.

Information Satellite Systems Reshetnev has been supplied with a Thales Alenia Space altimeter, SADKO-2, for its new geodetic spacecraft GEO-IK-2 No. 12.

Boeing announced that the third Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) military communications satellite has entered service for the U.S. Air Force.