Satellite News

Rocket: Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat; Payload: Gonets-M No. 30, 31, 32, Kosmos-2548 (ERA-1); Date: 3 December 2020, 0114 UTC; Launch site: Plesetsk, Russia. The satellites were deployed into 1,486 km x 1,505 km x 82.50 degrees orbits.

Chinese rocket manufacturer, China Rocket Co., Ltd., and the municipal government of Haiyang in east China’s Shandong Province signed a contract pledging to build a 163-hectare production base for solid-propellant rockets.

China’s Chang’e-5 probe has completed sampling on the moon, the samples have been sealed inside the ascent vehicle, which then lifted off from the moon’s surface at 1510 UTC.

Thales Alenia Space has signed a EUR482 million contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) to build the Copernicus Radar Observation System for Europe in L-band (ROSE-L) environmental monitoring satellite, as part of Europe’s Copernicus programme, the first tranche being EUR90 million.

Lockheed Martin announced the U.S. Space Force has determined the fifth Space Based Infrared System Geosynchronous Earth Orbit satellite (SBIRS GEO-5) is complete and ready for launch in 2021.

Global Positioning System III Space Vehicle (SV) 04 received United States Space Force’s Operational Acceptance approval on 1 December. It is the fourth GPS III satellite delivered into the operational constellation in the past 12 months and the second in the past three months.

NASA just bought the rights to four batches of future moon samples for the low, low price of $25,001.

It took 17 seconds for Arecibo’s massive radio telescope to crumble. It will take much longer for the dust to settle.