Satellite News

Russia plans to launch the next-generation GLONASS-K2 satellite aboard a Soyuz-2 from the Plesetsk spaceport or aboard an Angara rocket from the Vostochny cosmodrome in 2022, later than originally planned, Information Satellite Systems CEO Nikolai Testoyedov was quoted as saying.

Airbus has completed the integration of Cheops (CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite), the European Space Agency’s (ESA) first small mission satellite that will carry out an exciting scientific mission, to define the properties of the planets orbiting nearby stars.

A combined Galileo-GPS positioning fix has been achieved in space – aboard the International Space Station – through an ESA-NASA collaboration.

China aims to develop a new series of small, medium, large and heavy-lift Chang Zheng carrier rockets by 2030 to meet the demands of its space operations, according to an expert.

Airbus and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) have signed a five-year renewable Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that aims to jointly build capabilities in developed and developing countries in microgravity experiments and its related benefits.

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: Dragon (CRS-15); Date: 29 June 2018, 0942 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. Dragon separated from Falcon 9’s second stage about nine minutes and thirty seconds after lift-off and is on its way to the International Space Station, currently expected to arrive on 2 July.

Mission controllers have turned off the ion engines on NASA’s Dawn spacecraft for the last time and do not expect to turn them back on again.