Satellite News

Rocket: Proton-M/Block DM-03; Payload: Elektro-L No.3; Date: 24 December 2019, 1203 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The satellite was deployed into a 35,405 km near-geostationary orbit six and a half hours after launch.

Roskosmos intends to launch a new Angara carrier rocket in 2020, the Roskosmos press office was quoted as saying. The launch was previously scheduled for December 2019.

One of Russia’s Meteor-M satellites became uncontrollable following an external impact, presumably a micrometeorite strike, Russia’s Roskosmos state space corporation said on its website. At present, the satellite has resumed controlled flight.

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that its Super Low Altitude Test Satellite “TSUBAME” (SLATS) was registered by the Guinness World Records as having achieved the “lowest altitude by an Earth observation satellite in orbit.”

Boeing’s Starliner vessel returned to Earth on Sunday, landing in the New Mexico desert in the United States after a clock problem prevented a rendezvous with the International Space Station. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine insisted that the space mission was not a complete failure.

GomSpace (GS) and Lockheed Martin Space agreed to develop and deliver a tailored GS 6U nanosatellite to Orbital Micro Systems (OMS) in the United Kingdom.

Rocket: Soyuz ST-A/Fregat; Payload: COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation, CHEOPS (Characterising Exoplanet Satellite) and three auxiliary payloads: EyeSat, OPS-SAT and ANGELS; Date: 18 December 2019, 0854 UTC; Launch site: Sinnamary, French Guiana. The launcher flew a four-hour-plus profile to release its multi-satellite payload into Sun-synchronous orbit – beginning with primary passenger COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation, then CHEOPS (Characterising Exoplanet Satellite) and three auxiliary payloads: EyeSat, OPS-SAT and ANGELS.

NASA has selected United Launch Services LLC (ULS) of Centennial, Colorado, to provide launch services for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-T (GOES-T) mission, which will provide advanced imagery and atmospheric measurements of Earth’s weather, oceans and environment, real-time mapping of total lightning activity, and improved monitoring of solar activity and space weather.