Satellite News

NASA has announced that it will extend the MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) mission for an additional year of orbital operations at Mercury beyond the planned end of the primary mission on 17 March 2012. The MESSENGER probe became the first spacecraft to orbit the innermost planet on 18 March 2011.

NASA’s Voyager 2 has successfully switched to the backup set of thrusters that controls the roll of the spacecraft. Deep Space Network personnel sent commands to the spacecraft to make the change on 4 November and received confirmation today that the switch has been made.

Russia has time until the beginning of December to establish contact with its Fobos-Grunt unmanned spacecraft that is stranded at a low-Earth orbit after launch, the head of Roskosmos said. All attempts to receive a signal from the spacecraft have so far been unsuccessful.
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Rocket: Soyuz-FG; Payload: Soyuz TMA-22; Date: 14 November 2011, 0414 UTC; Launch Site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The crew – NASA astronaut Dan Burbank and Russian cosmonauts Anton Shkaplerov and Anatoly Ivanishin – should dock with the ISS on 16 November, 0533 UTC.
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The first Vega launch campaign began on 14 November at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana with the installation of the first stage on the pad. Europe’s new small launcher is on track for its maiden flight at the end of January.
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Up to four launches of Zenit-3SL rockets could be carried out in 2012 under the Sea Launch project, RSC Energia President and General Design Engineer Vitaly Lopota was quoted as saying.
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Arianespace and DirecTV announced a new launch contract for a satellite providing services for DirecTV Latin America. The launch will take place in 2014 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana on an Ariane 5.
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SES S.A. announced that the QuetzSat-1 satellite is fully operational and ready for service as of 10 November. QuetzSat-1 was successfully launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on board an ILS Proton Briz M booster on 30 September 2011.
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