Satellite News

The European-built Service Module (ESM) that will propel, power and cool during NASA’s Orion spacecraft on Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1) has arrived from Germany at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Tuesday to begin final outfitting, integration and testing with the crew module and other Orion elements.

The Arianespace Soyuz mission that will orbit the third and final spacecraft in EUMETSAT’s current generation polar-orbiting weather satellite programme has been authorised for launch on 7 November (UTC) from the Spaceport in French Guiana.

Rocket: Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat; Payload: Uragan M No. 757 [GLONASS M 757]; Date: 3 November 2018, 2017 UTC; Launch site: Plesetsk, Russia. The Russian Defense Ministry said that the upper stage rocket successfully placed the navigation satellite into orbit after separating from the third stage of the Soyuz-2.1b.

Rocket: Chang Zheng 3B/G2; Payload: Beidou-3G1Q [Beidou-41]; Time: 2 November 2018, 1557 UTC; Launch site: Xichang Satellite Launch Center; China. The navigation satellite was placed into a 184 km x 35,8127 km x 28.5 degrees geostationary transfer orbit.

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission has resumed collecting science-quality data and planned in-orbit checks after successfully completing a switchover to a backup system in the microwave instrument (MWI) on one of the mission’s twin spacecraft.

The launch of a Soyuz-2.1b rocket with a GLONASS space vehicle on 3 November was insured, head of Russia’s State Space Corporation Roskosmos Dmitry Rogozin said. The launch of the cargo spacecraft Progress MS-10 on 16 November will also be insured, he added.

Viasat, Inc. announced financial results for the fiscal second quarter ending 30 September 2018.

Globalstar, Inc. announced its financial results for the quarter ending 30 September 2018.