Satellite News

Rocket: Soyuz-FG; Payload: Soyuz MS-11; Date: 3 December 2018, 1131 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft was accurately placed on the target orbit for another mission to the International Space Station. This was the thirteenth Soyuz family mission in 2018, and the first crewed Soyuz launch after the anomaly on 11 October.

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: SSO-A: SmallSat Express (64 small satellites); Date: 3 December 2018, 1834 UTC; Launch site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, USA. A series of six deployments occurred approximately 13 to 43 minutes after lift-off, after which launch customer Spaceflight began to command its own deployment sequences.

Arianespace has been chosen by the Slovenian Centre of Excellence for Space Sciences and Technologies (SPACE-SI) to launch the NEMO-HD microsat on the Vega launch vehicle as part of the Small Spacecraft Mission Service (SSMS) Proof of Concept (POC) flight in 2019.

NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft has completed its 2 billion-kilometer journey to arrive at the asteroid Bennu. The spacecraft executed a manoeuvre that transitioned it from flying toward Bennu to operating around the asteroid.

Nine U.S. companies now are eligible to bid on NASA delivery services to the lunar surface through Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contracts. These companies will be able to bid on delivering science and technology payloads for NASA, including payload integration and operations, launching from Earth and landing on the surface of the Moon.