Satellite News

The European spacecraft BepiColombo is currently undergoing final testing in launch configuration, prior to being shipped to the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana next March for a scheduled October 2018 launch.

Aerojet Rocketdyne, Inc. successfully conducted a series of hot-fire tests on a Power Processing Unit (PPU) for an Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS). The tests were conducted at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

Investigators have uncovered the problems behind the failure of atomic clocks onboard satellites belonging to the beleaguered Galileo satnav system, the European Commission said.

The first Russian atmospheric platform dubbed “Sova” (Owl) with a high-aspect ratio flexible wing began flight tests at an altitude of 49,000-65,000 feet [14.7-19.5 km], an official with the Advanced Research Fund was quoted as saying.

The launch of a Falcon 9 with Intelsat 35e aboard from Kennedy Space Center was scrubbed again on 3 July. SpaceX said the abort was “due to a violation of abort criteria” but did not elaborate.

China’s Xinhua news agency said that the launch of the country’s latest heavy-lift carrier rocket, the Chang Zheng-5 Y2, was unsuccessful. The report stated that “Abnormity was detected during the flight of the rocket, which blasted off at [1123 UTC on 2 July] from Wenchang Space Launch Center in southern province of Hainan. Further investigation will be carried out.”

The story of the recently failed AMC-9 satellite got another twist over the weekend as it became known that the spacecraft was accompanied by several pieces of debris. It is unknown whether these pieces were shed by the satellite or whether they are of a different origin. Meanwhile, satellite operator said it hat made some contact with AMC-9 but wouldn’t confirm it was in full control of the spacecraft.

SpaceX called off the launch of Intelsat 35e from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) 10 seconds before lift-off on 2 July owing to to a technical issue with the Falcon 9 rocket.