Satellite News

The payload assembly process is now complete for Arianespace’s medium-lift Soyuz flight on 24 May from French Guiana, which is to orbit the 13th and 14th Full Operational Capability (FOC) satellites at the service of Europe’s Galileo navigation system.

The first rocket launch from Russia’s Vostochny cosmodrome had to be postponed for one day on 27 April due to a faulty cable, which proved to have a design flaw, a panel of inquiry of the space corporation Roskosmos has found.

China plans to launch 30 Beidou navigation satellites during the 13th five-year plan period (2016-2020), capping its three-step strategy to build a global navigation system by 2020.

On 18 May 2016, the 111th customer CubeSat was deployed from the company’s NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer (NRCSD) via the JAXA Kibo airlock on the International Space Station (ISS).

In December, the first GPS III satellite completed system-level Thermal Vacuum (TVAC) testing, validating Lockheed Martin’s design and manufacturing processes. Seven more GPS III satellites are following the first one in production flow at Lockheed Martin’s GPS Processing Facility in Denver.