Satellite News

The U.S. military landed its X-37B robotic space plane at Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California on Friday, ending a classified 22-month mission that marked the third in Earth orbit for the experimental programme, the U.S. Air Force said.

Boeing has successfully completed the final milestone of its Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) Space Act Agreement with NASA. The work and testing completed under the agreement resulted in significant maturation of Boeing’s crew transportation system, including the CST-100 spacecraft and Atlas V rocket.

In the frame of the MUSIS (MUltinational Space-based Imaging System) programme, Thales Alenia Space Italia has signed a contract with OCCAR-EA (Organisation for Joint Armament Cooperation), called MUSIS Federating Activities Phase B2, which aims at providing the customers with the definition of the CIL (Common Interoperability Layer).

Sierra Nevada Corp. filed a federal lawsuit to stop work under the CCtCap contracts awarded by NASA while a bid protest is under way, the company’s vice president said.

Rocket: Ariane 5 ECA; Payload: Intelsat 30 (ISDLA-1), ARSAT 1; Date: 16 October 2014, 2143 UTC; Launch site: Kourou, French Guiana. Both spacecraft were successfully deployed into geostationary transfer orbits.

ISRO’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C26, successfully launched IRNSS-1C, the third satellite in the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota. It was the twenty seventh consecutively successful mission of PSLV. The ‘XL’ configuration of PSLV was used for this mission. Previously, the same configuration of the vehicle was successfully used six times.

Due to the impending arrival of Hurricane Gonzalo on the island of Bermuda, where an essential tracking site used to ensure public safety during Antares launches is located, the previously announced “no earlier than” (NET) launch date of 24 October for the Orb-3 CRS mission to the International Space Station for NASA is no longer feasible.

The Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) spacecraft arrived Wednesday at its launch site on California’s central coast after travelling from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California. The spacecraft will undergo final tests and then be integrated on top of a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket in preparation for a planned launch on 29 January 2015.