Satellite News

Lockheed Martin has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of the Astrotech Space Operations business of Astrotech Corporation for US$ 61 million.

Rocket: Soyuz FG; Payload: Soyuz TMA-13M; Date: 28 May 2014, 1957 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The crew spacecraft safely reached orbit 8 minutes and 46 seconds after launch and is expected to dock with the International Space Station about six hours after lift-off.

Orbital has rescheduled the launch of its Antares rocket for the Orb-2 mission to a date of no earlier than (NET) 17 June 2014.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) announced that it has completed qualification testing for the SuperDraco thruster, an engine that will power the Dragon spacecraft’s launch escape system and enable the vehicle to land propulsively on Earth or another planet with pinpoint accuracy.

The Ekspress-AM6 telecommunications satellite, designed and built by the ISS Reshetnev Company, was delivered to the Baikonur cosmodrome on 26 May 2014 to begin pre-launch preparations.

Europe’s upcoming Sentinel-2 mission has reached a significant milestone on its road to delivering high-resolution optical images for monitoring Earth. Seven years in the making, the spacecraft’s imager is ready to join the first satellite.

Sea Launch SA has successfully launched the Eutelsat 3B satellite from at its ocean-based Launch Platform Odyssey. This marks the completion of Sea Launch’s first mission in 2014, its third for Eutelsat and its 36th mission overall.

Snecma (Safran) and Thales Alenia Space France signed an agreement on 20 May to work together on new-generation Spacebus satellite platforms with “all electric” propulsion.