Satellite News

Rocket: Rokot/Briz-KM; Payload: Kosmos 2496, Kosmos 2497, Kosmos 2498; Date: 23 May 2014, 0527 UTC; Launch site: Plesetsk, Russia. “The defence satellite cluster has successfully reached the final orbit,” Aerospace Defense Forces Col. Alexei Zolotukhin was quoted as saying.

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) is announcing the launch of TechDemoSat-1, an in-orbit technology demonstration mission for innovative UK spacecraft equipment and software, planned for 28 June 2014 by a Soyuz-2 launch vehicle with a Fregat upper stage from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

RUAG Space received an order from Airbus Defence and Space to deliver a deployable camera mast for the Mars rover element of the European-Russian collaborative ExoMars mission, for which Thales Alenia Space Italy has entered a contract with European Space Agency ESA to undertake the ExoMars Implementation Project as Prime Contractor.

NASA has given a green light to a group of citizen scientists attempting to breathe new scientific life into a more than 35-year old agency spacecraft.

The international COSPAS-SARSAT rescue network, responsible for saving more than 37,000 people worldwide, including more than 7,300 in the United States thanks to NOAA satellite operations, was inducted into the Space Foundation’s Space Technology Hall of Fame yesterday.