Satellite News

Rocket: Kuaizhou; Payload: Kuaizhou II; Date: 21 November 2014, 0637 UTC; Launch site: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China. The satellite will be used to monitor natural disasters and provide disaster-relief information, Xinhua news agency said.

Based on joint work by ESA and CNES, the date for the IXV mission to be launched by Vega has been set for 11 February 2015.

RedEye, a Stratasys company and provider of 3D printing and additive manufacturing services, has partnered with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to 3D print 30 antenna array supports for the FORMOSAT-7 Constellation Observing System for Meteorology, Ionosphere, and Climate (COSMIC-2) satellite mission.

Intended to effortlessly spin on-orbit at nearly 15 revolutions per minute collecting data, Northrop Grumman’s lightweight mesh reflector has been successfully installed on NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) spacecraft and delivered to Vandenberg Air Force Base in preparation for launch in January 2015.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. said it is providing the phased array antennas and flight test cameras to prime contractor Lockheed Martin for Orion’s Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), which is an unmanned test flight scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida on 4 December.

NASA’s MAVEN Mars orbiter went into safehold mode on Wednesday, 19 November. Safehold was triggered by a timing conflict between commands.

Rocket: Chang Zheng 2D; Payload: Yaogan Weixing 24; Date: 20 November 2014, 0712 UTC; Launch site: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China. The launch, which had not been announced in advance, reportedly was successful.

NASA has selected Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Virginia, to provide launch services for the Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) mission.