Satellite News

There is some doubt over the completion of the construction of Russia’s new Vostochny cosmodrome, however the details are sketchy. The problem seems to lie with the assembly building for Soyuz 2.1a rockets, the first of which recently arrived at the launch site.

The launch of the Sentinel 3A satellite aboard a Russian Rokot, originally planned for 10 December, may be postponed until late December, a source in the rocket and space industry was quoted as saying by TASS.

Ball Aerospace, prime contractor for NASA’s Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM), has integrated the propulsion subsystem onto the BCP-100 spacecraft bus and begun system performance and environmental testing as the project heads toward a 2016 launch date.

ESA and EUMETSAT have signed a cooperation agreement that secures the continued development of the MetOp Second Generation satellites, which will start providing meteorological observations from polar orbit in mid-2021.

Eutelsat Communications and Facebook announced they are partnering on a new initiative that will leverage satellite technologies to get more Africans online. Under a multi-year agreement with Spacecom, the two companies will utilise the entire broadband payload on the future Amos-6 satellite and will build a dedicated system comprising satellite capacity, gateways and terminals.

International Launch Services (ILS) has appointed Jim Kramer as Vice President of Engineering and Mission Assurance and Thomas Carroll as Vice President of Sales.