Satellite News

Rocket: Ariane 5 ECA; Payload: DirecTV-14, GSAT-16 ; Date: 6 December 2014, 2040 UTC; Launch site: Kourou, French Guyana. The satellites were successfully inserted into geostationary transfer orbit.

Rocket: Chang Zheng-4B; Payload: CBERS-4; Date: 7 December 2014, 0326 UTC; Launch site: Taiyuan satellite launch centre, China. The satellite was placed in its target orbit.

On 28 November 2014, the flight control team at ESOC reported loss of contact with Venus Express.

After a voyage of nearly nine years and 4.8 billion kilometers – the farthest any space mission has ever travelled to reach its primary target – NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft came out of hibernation for its 2015 encounter with the Pluto system.