Satellite News

Rocket: Soyuz 2.1-b; Payload: Resurs-P; Date: 25 June 2013, 1728 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. It was the first of two successful (yet otherwise unrelated) Soyuz launches on the same day.

Rocket: Soyuz ST-B/Fregat; Payload: four O3b satellites; Date: 25 June 2013, 1924 UTC; Launch Site: Sinnamary, French Guiana. All four satellites were successfully deployed into their target orbits.

NASA has delayed the launch the Sun-observing IRIS satellite by a day.

A NASA advanced ion propulsion engine has successfully operated for more than 48,000 hours, or 5 and a half years, making it the longest test duration of any type of space propulsion system demonstration project ever.

GeoMetWatch Corp announced it has entered into a Space Act Agreement with NASA to provide four years of Earth observation and weather data from GeoMetWatch’s first Sounding and Tracking Observatory for Regional Meteorology (STORM) mission on board an Asia Satellite Telecommunications spacecraft.

In its Annual General Meeting, the Board of the European Satellite Operators Association (ESOA) elected Michel de Rosen, CEO of Eutelsat, as its new Chairman of the Board.