Satellite News

Arianespace announced a preorder from the European Space Agency (ESA), on behalf of the European Commission (DG Grow), for four launches using the Ariane 6 rocket. Planned to start in January 2022, these launches will orbit eight satellites from Batch 3 to support the final deployment of the Galileo constellation and the replacement of certain satellites.

This year’s first launch of a Proton-M rocket with Ekspress-80 and Ekspress-103 communications satellites from the Baikonur spaceport has been postponed to late May owing to problems with the rocket’s components, Khrunichev Space Center Director General Alexei Varochko was quoted as saying.

The joint NASA and Boeing Independent Review Team formed following the anomalies during the company’s uncrewed Orbital Flight Test as a part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program has completed its initial investigation.