Satellite News

Rocket: Electron; Payload: seven smallsats; Date: 29 June 2019, 0430 UTC; Launch site: Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand. At approximately 56 minutes after lift-off, the payloads were successfully delivered to their precise individual orbits by Electron’s Kick Stage.

The United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket carrying the AEHF-5 mission for the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems is now targeted for Wednesday, 17 July 2019 at 1112 UTC, with a two-hour launch window.

Aerojet Rocketdyne recently delivered four RS-25 engines to NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility (MAF) forintegration with the core stage of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) in anticipation of the rocket’s first flight on the Artemis 1 mission.

Tunisian company TELNET Holding and Russian companies SPUTNIX and GK Launch Services have signed a trilateral memorandum of understanding under which the parties intend to co-operate in building of smallsat components and entire satellites, their orbiting and deployment of constellations.

China’s two ocean observation satellites, HY-1C and HY-2B, have completed their in-orbit delivery, according to the Ministry of Natural Resources.

NASA announced that it has selected Dragonfly, a rotorcraft-lander expedition to Saturn’s large moon Titan as the next mission in its New Frontiers programme.

SpaceX said that of the company’s 60 Starlink satellites launched last May, so far 45 have actually reached their intended orbits, and three have even completely failed.