Satellite News

Rocket: Chang Zheng 2D; Payload: Tianhui-1C; Date: 26 October 2015, 0710 UTC; Launch site: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China. The mapping satellite was placed into a 490 km x 500 km x 97 degrees orbit.

Arianespace has received the sixth Ariane 5 for launch in 2015, keeping the company on track for a record year of mission activity with its complete launcher family at the Spaceport in French Guiana.

A rare reentry of a suspected rocket body from a very high orbit next month offers an excellent opportunity to gather data to improve our knowledge of how objects interact with Earth’s atmosphere, ESA said.

Lockheed Martin and NASA have completed the majority of Orion’s Critical Design Review (CDR) which means the spacecraft’s design is mature enough to move into full-scale fabrication, assembly, integration and test of the vehicle.

Space Systems/Loral (SSL) announced that it is the industrial partner for a project in the running to be NASA’s next Discovery mission. SSL will work for Caltech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to support Principal Investigator Dr. Lindy Elkins-Tanton, director of Arizona State University’s (ASU) School of Earth and Space Exploration, in a mission to research Psyche, a massive asteroid made of iron and nickel, which is believed to be the only place in the solar system where a metal planetary core can be studied.