Satellite News

Rocket: PSLV-C42 (core-alone version); Payload: NovaSAR, S1-4; Date: 16 September 2018, 16347 UTC; Launch site: Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, India. Both satellites were injected into 583 km Sun Synchronous Orbit.

Rocket: Delta II; Payload: Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2); Date: 15 September 2018, 1302 UTC; Launch site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, USA. This marks the final mission of the Delta II rocket, which first launched on 14 February 1989, and launched 155 times including ICESat-2.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have cancelled launch of the H-IIB Launch Vehicle No. 7 (H-IIB F7) with the H-II Transfer Vehicle “KOUNOTORI7” (HTV7) aboard.

The U.S. Air Force announced selection of Lockheed Martin for a fixed-price-type production contract for 22 GPS III Follow-On satellites with a total estimated contract value up to US$7.2 billion.

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission team plans to switch to a backup system in the Microwave Instrument (MWI) on one of the twin spacecraft this month. Following the switch-over, GRACE-FO is expected to quickly resume science data collection.