Satellite News

Rocket: GSLV Mk. II; Payload: GSAT-7A; Date: 19 December 2018, 1040 UTC; Launch site: Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota, India. About 19 minutes after lift-off, GSAT-7A was injected into a supersynchronous Transfer Orbit of 170.8 km x 39,127 km, which is very close to the intended orbit.

Rocket: Soyuz ST-B; Payload: CSO-1; Date: 19 December 2018, 1637 UTC; Launch site: Sinnamary, French Guiana. The rocket delivered the CSO-1 spacecraft passenger (which had a mass at launch of 3,566 kg) into an 800-km Sun-synchronous orbit.

A sensor issue on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is still delaying the launch of a new GPS III navigation satellite for the U.S. Air Force from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Spaceflight announced it was awarded the contract to provide launch services for INPE, Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (in Portuguese: Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais), the research unit of the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications.

The decision of OneWeb to scale back the constellation of its communications satellites will not affect the number of Russia’s Soyuz rockets contracted by the company for the launches, a source in the space industry told Sputnik news agency.

Al Yah Satellite Communications Company (Yahsat) and Hughes Network Systems announced the commencement of a joint venture to provide commercial satellite services across Africa, the Middle East and southwest Asia.

Rocket: Electron/Curie; Payload: ELaNa-XIX [13 cubesats]; Date: 16 December 2018, 0633 UTC; Launch site: Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand. The Curie third stage injected the CubeSats, which had a total mass of 78 kg, into a 500 km circular orbit at an inclination of 85 degrees.

Everything is progressing toward the ULA Delta IV Heavy launch carrying the NROL-71 mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.