Satellite News

The Ekspress-AM5 telecommunications spacecraft, designed and constructed by Information Satellite Systems – Reshetnev Company, was successfully launched into supersynchronous transfer orbit on 26 December 2013. A ground control station received signals from the spacecraft, verifying it is healthy in orbit – solar panels deployed, the onboard equipment is performing as designed, Sun acquisition has been completed successfully.

NASA and JAXA selected 1807 to 2007 UTC on 27 February as the launch date and launch window for a Japanese H-IIA rocket carrying the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Core Observatory satellite from JAXA’s Tanegashima Space Center.

The inaugural launch of the Soyuz-2-1v rocket has again been rescheduled. Lift-off from Plesetsk is now planned for 28 December, 1000 UTC.

The multi-role Athena-Fidus satellite has completed initial checkout at the Spaceport as it is readied for a dual-payload, geostationary transfer orbit launch on Arianespace’s first flight in 2014.

The launch of Russia’s Spektr-RG satellite has been delayed until 2015 owing to problems with a German-built telescope.

Skybox Imaging announced the release of the world’s first high-resolution, high-definition video of Earth taken by a commercial remote sensing satellite. These videos were taken by SkySat-1, the first of Skybox’s planned constellation of 24 satellites.