Satellite News

Rocket: Soyuz-U; Payload: Progress M-29M [Progress 61P]; Date: 1649 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Less than nine minutes after launch, the resupply ship reached preliminary orbit and deployed its solar arrays and navigational antennas as planned.

The U.S. Air Force has released a final Request for Proposal (RFP) for Global Positioning System (GPS) III Launch Services. Launch services include launch vehicle production, mission integration and launch operations for a GPS III mission scheduled to launch in 2018. Proposals are due back to the Air Force no later than 16 November in accordance with the solicitation instructions.

30 September marked the completion of the major repair work at the Virginia Space – MARS Launch Pad-0A, located on NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.

Airbus Defence and Space has successfully completed the final integration and testing of Arabsat 6B (Badr-7) for which it is co-prime industrial contractor. The satellite today left the Airbus Defence and Space facilities in Toulouse, France, and will now be transported by air to Kourou, French Guiana. The satellite is due to be launched in the upcoming weeks by an Ariane 5 launcher.

NASA has selected five science investigations for refinement during the next year as a first step in choosing one or two missions for flight opportunities as early as 2020. The submitted proposals would study Venus, near-Earth objects and a variety of asteroids.

Indra will be in charge of storing at its data centre in San Fernando de Henares (Madrid) the images of the future optical Earth observation satellite, Sentinel-2B, which is planned to be launched into orbit in 2016.