Satellite News

The Jason-3 operational oceanographic satellite will be launched on 17 January 2016 at 1842:18 UTC from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Jason-3 was built through an international quadripartite partnership between EUMETSAT, NOAA, CNES and NASA.

A Proton M launch vehicle, utilising a 5-burn Briz M mission design, will lift off from Pad 39 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, with the Eutelsat 9B satellite on board at 2219:45 UTC on 27 January 2016.

China has officially begun a new round of lunar exploration and will send the Chang’e-4 probe to the far side of the moon in 2018, China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (SASTIND) announced.

Russian company Voronezh KBKhA has completed the series of first firing trials of a high frequency ion engine, Roskosmos said.

The number of satellites in the Russian orbital constellation in 2025 will reach 70 instead of previously planned 95 spacecraft, according to the draft federal space programme for 2016-2025 prepared by the Russian state space corporation, Roskosmos.

Roskosmos plans to develop a natural-gas-powered rocket engine. The federal space exploration programme for 2016-2025 guarantees funding for the project.

NASA has awarded three cargo contracts to ensure the critical science, research and technology demonstrations are delivered to the International Space Station (ISS) from 2019 through 2024. The agency unveiled its selection of Orbital ATK of Dulles, Virginia; Sierra Nevada Corporation of Sparks, Nevada; and SpaceX of Hawthorne, California.

The U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center awarded the first two Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs) for shared public-private investments in Rocket Propulsion System (RPS) prototypes.