Satellite News

Rocket: Soyuz; Payload: Galileo 11 (FM 7), Galileo 12 (FM 8); Date: 17 December 2015, 1151:56 UTC; Launch site: Sinnamary, French Guiana. Less than four hours after lift-off they reached their planned orbit at an altitude of around 23,000 kilometers.

Rocket: Chang Zheng 2D; Payload: DAMPE “Wokong”; Date: 17. December 2015, 0012 UTC; Lauch site: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China.

NASA’s next Mars spacecraft has arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, for final preparations before a launch scheduled in March 2016 and a landing on Mars six months later.

The launch of Jason-3, an international mission led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to continue U.S.- European satellite measurements of the topography of the ocean surfaces, is scheduled for launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Sunday, 17 January 2016.

ESA and Arianespace announced the signature of the launch services contract for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), to be orbited by an Ariane 5 ECA launch vehicle from the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The launch is planned for October 2018.

Orbital ATK, Inc. has been awarded a contract from United Launch Alliance (ULA) for large-size composite structures to be used for the Atlas V and Delta IV vehicles in support of the current United States Air Force Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicles (EELV) programmes.

Aerojet Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc., announced it completed a key design milestone for its AR1 rocket engine this week. AR1 is a U.S.-made engine that is being developed as a direct replacement for the Russian-made RD-180 engines that currently power launches of the majority of national security satellites to orbit for the U.S. government.

On 21 November 2015, communications signals from and contact with Amos-5. the telecommunications satellite designed and built by Academician M.F. Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems for Spacecom, were lost. On the day when the satellite ceased functioning ISS-Reshetnev Company set up a commission to search for possible causes of the satellite’s failure which was headed by Yuriy Maximov, deputy general director for quality at ISS-Reshetnev.