Satellite News

Rocket: Antares; Payload: Cygnus; Date: 18 September 2013, 1458 UTC; Launch site: Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, Wallops Island, USA. Following a 10-minute ascent, the Cygnus spacecraft was successfully deployed by the Antares upper stage and placed into its intended orbit of about 288 km x 256 km above the Earth, inclined at 51.6 degrees to the equator.

Rocket: Atlas V 531; Payload: AEHF 3; Date: 18 September 2013, 0810 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. Satellite manufacturer Lockheed Martin confirmed signal acquisition at 51 minutes after launch.

Astrium and Arianespace signed an initial agreement on 17 September to begin the production of 18 additional Ariane 5 ECA launchers.

Boeing shipped the fifth GPS IIF satellite from its satellite factory in El Segundo, California, on a U.S. Air Force C-17 airlifter.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) said it has established the Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) programme, which aims to develop a fully reusable unmanned vehicle that would provide aircraft-like access to space. The vehicle is envisioned to operate from a “clean pad” with a small ground crew and no need for expensive specialised infrastructure.

Astrium and OHB System AG (Bremen, Germany) have signed a contract in Friedrichshafen for the development, construction and launch of a high performance radar satellite for the ‘SARah’ satellite-based reconnaissance system, for a total value of EUR344 million.

The first of three Inmarsat-5 Global Xpress (GX) satellites being built by Boeing has successfully completed a key system life test, paving the way for it to launch later this year. The satellite performed as expected during the spacecraft thermal vacuum test.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said that all the 11 communication transponders (operating in UHF, S, C and Ku-bands) of India’s multiband communication satellite GSAT-7 have been successfully switched on and their performance is found to be normal.