Satellite News

Russia’s Rokot launcher is expected to return to flight in early September and take a Gonets communication spacecraft into orbit, Roskosmos Director Vladimir Popovkin was quoted as saying.

NASA has selected United Launch Services to launch the Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft.

Lockheed Martin delivered NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft to the Kennedy Space Center, on 2 August. The orbiter will now undergo three-and-a-half months of final processing in preparation for a November launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V-401 rocket.

The Kepler team has continued exploratory recovery testing of Reaction Wheel 4 (RW4). On 25 July 2013, the wheel spun in both directions in response to commands.

A Lockheed Martin team has completed and passed the full range of environmental tests – electrical, mechanical and thermal – for the Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUVI) instrument that will make crucial solar measurements when it flies on the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) satellite mission, known as GOES-R.

The financial police have arrested Gabdullatif Murzakulov, President of Kazakhstan Garysh Sapary national company, for alleged corruption.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that the launch time of the H-IIB Launch Vehicle No. 4 with the H-II Transfer Vehicle “Kounotori 4″ (HTV4) onboard has been set for 3 August, 1948 UTC.

Inmarsat’s Alphasat I-4A F4 satellite has achieved a major milestone with the successful deployment of its solar arrays. The spacecraft has now reached geosynchronous orbit and is drawing power from the Sun.