Satellite News

Rocket: Proton M/Briz-M; Payload: Blagovest No.13L [Kosmos-2533]; Date: 21 December 2018, 0020 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. “The upper stage of the Proton-M rocket, comprising the Briz-M booster and the Russian Defense Ministry’s spacecraft, separated as scheduled, at 03:30 Moscow time [0030 UTC],” the Defense Ministry said.

Rocket: Chang Zheng 11; Payload: Hongyun-1; Date: 21 December 2018, 2351 UTC; Launch site: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre, China. The satellite was deployed into a Sun-synchronous orbit with an altitude of around 500 kilometres.

The launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying the first GPS III satellite for the U.S. Air Force on 22 December has been delayed for 24 hours.

GomSpace has signed a EUR300,000 development contract with ESA for the initiation of a new GOMX-5 satellite mission to demonstrate new nanosatellite capabilities for the next generation of constellations requiring high speed communications links and high levels of manoeuvrability.

Having completed all necessary qualification testing, ESA has received the green light to upgrade the global infrastructure running Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system. The resulting migration, set to start in February 2019, will incorporate new elements into the world-spanning system and boost the robustness of Galileo services delivered from the 26 satellites in orbit.