Satellite News

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. has signed a contract worth several million dollars to provide Tesat-Spacecom GmbH and Co. KG with advanced technology solutions to be integrated into the European Data Relay Satellite (EDRS) system.

Kazakhstan will launch its third KazSat satellite in 2014, which is to offer telecommunication services to neighbouring countries.

Rocket: Vega, Payload: Proba-V, VNREDSat-1 and ESTCube-1; Date: 7 May 2013, 0206 UTC; Launch site: Kourou, French Guiana. After this successful second flight, Vega is now fully operational.

The Resurs-P Earth observation satellite is due to be launched from Baikonur, Kazakhstan on 23 June. It will be the first launch along the so-called “northern trajectory” [i.e. into polar orbit] this year.

ISRO is planning launch five rockets in 2013 from its launch pad at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh, including a mission to Mars.

SES S.A. announced that the SES-6 satellite has safely arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The spacecraft is now being processed for launch on board an ILS Proton Briz M rocket scheduled to lift-off at 1318 UTC on 3 June 2013.

Given the weather conditions over the Guiana Space Center, the European Space Agency (ESA) and Arianespace have decided to restart the countdown for Vega Flight VV02.

With the Antares test flight successfully completed, Orbital’s Antares and Cygnus teams are now focused on the demonstration mission to the International Space Station (ISS), the final milestone in the COTS joint programme with NASA. Orbital currently expects to be ready to carry out the Demonstration Mission in August, previously planned for mid-year.