Satellite News

Rocket: Chang Zheng-11; Payload: XPNAV-1 plus Xaiaoxiang-1 and three Lishui-1 nanosatellites; Date: 9 November 2016, 2342 UTC; Launch site: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China. The satellites were deployed into low-Earth orbit.

Arianespace has finished the Ariane 5 launcher with the installation of the payload fairing over the four Galileo spacecraft and their payload dispenser.

After a programme review completed in September, ESA is now in a position to proceed with the full development of its Ariane 6 and Vega C launch vehicles. Following this review, the representatives of the ESA Member States unanimously voted in favour of continuing the Ariane 6 programme.

Two Harris Corporation unfurlable mesh antenna reflectors have successfully deployed in orbit onboard the U.S. Navy’s fifth Mobile User Objective System (MUOS-5) satellite. MUOS-5, an advanced, new secure communications satellite built by Lockheed Martin, launched on 24 June from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Airbus Defence and Space has signed GigaSat to its channel partner programme for Skynet services. GigaSat will be offering Skynet services as part of their mobile and fly-away communications portfolio, to Indonesian Defence Forces operating within the Asia Pacific Region.

SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said investigators had figured out why a Falcon 9 rocket burst into flames on 1 September as it was being fuelled for a routine, preflight test. The accident destroyed the US$200 million Israeli communications satellite Amos 6 and grounded the Falcon 9 fleet for the second time in 14 months.

Analytical Graphics, Inc.’s (AGI) Commercial Space Operations Center (ComSpOC) said that it is tracking two apparent payloads of the recent Chang Zheng 5 launch, one of which is the reported Shijian-17 experimental satellite.

Space Systems Loral (SSL) and Hughes Network Systems, a subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation, announced that the EchoStar XIX satellite, which SSL designed and built for Hughes, has arrived at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, where it will be launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle.