Satellite News

Rocket: Delta 4-Medium+4,2; Payload: NROL-27 (classified U.S. military satellite); Date: 11 March 2011, 2338 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. The mission was declared a success by the U.S. Air Force and the country’s National Reconnaissance Office.

Naval Research Laboratory spacecraft personnel make final preparations to ready the TacSat-4 spacecraft for a May 2011 launch. Transported on 1 March to the Kodiak Alaska airport via an Air Force C-17 and trucked to the Alaska Aerospace Kodiak Launch Complex, the TacSat-4 satellite will be launched aboard an Orbital Sciences Minotaur-IV launch vehicle into a highly elliptical orbit (HEO) with an apogee of 12,050 kilometers.

Russia’s geostationary military communication satellite Raduga 1-7 has likely lost communications with the flight control centre, Interfax news agency reported.