Satellite News

The Sea Launch vessels have departed Sea Launch Home Port in Long Beach, California, for the equator, in preparation for the launch of the Intelsat 27 satellite. Liftoff is scheduled for 0656 UTC on 31 January) at the opening of the 58-minute launch window.

After in-orbit testing, the Yamal-300K satellite was put into commercial operation. The spacecraft is operated from the Mission Control Center of Gazprom Space Systems, located in Schelkovo, Moscow region.

Roskosmos and ESA will sign a final agreement on 15 March on the ExoMars project, whose goal is to send unmanned probes to Mars, Roskosmos spokeswoman Anna Vedisheva was quoted as saying.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. has been awarded a contract valued at C$2.6 million from NASA’s Johnson Space Center to extend its support of the Robotic Work Station on the International Space Station.

Aerojet announced that its AJ26 engine successfully completed a hot fire test at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. Orbital Sciences Corporation (ORB), Aerojet and NASA monitored the full-duration test in support of the Antares rocket programme. This is the eleventh AJ26 engine to be tested at Stennis.

Arabsat has finalised the mission definition for Badr-7 (a.k.a. Arabsat-6B) and confirmed the in-orbit delivery contract to the consortium of Astrium and Thales Alenia Space, which has already started building the new satellite.

Meteosat-10 (formerly MSG-3) has replaced Meteosat-9 as EUMETSAT’s prime operational geostationary weather satellite after being moved to 0 degrees.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has successfully integrated the fifth and final payload to fly aboard the STPSat-3 spacecraft when it launches from Wallops Island, Virginia, in mid-2013.