Satellite News

Rocket Lab USA, Inc. announced the launch window for a dedicated Electron mission for Japanese Earth imaging company Synspective. The 14-day launch window opens on 28 February UTC and will lift-off from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand.

Rocket: Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat; Payload: 34 OneWeb satellites (OneWeb 13); Date: 10 February 2022, 1809 UTC; Launch site: Sinnamary, French Guiana. The launch went ahead as planned. The mission was expected to be completed 3 hours, 33 minutes after lift-off [too late for this issue.]

The launch of Astra’s 3.3 rocket (LV 0008) ended in failure for a reason yet unknown. The rocket appeared to have reached an altitude of 104 km and then experienced a malfunction, sending the second stage tumbling after separation. Further details were not available at the time of writing this.

Following an open invitation to tender,GMV has been awarded a new contract by the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), located in Darmstadt (Germany) for the provision of Operational Optical Data Services to support the flight dynamics operations of its fleet of Meteosat (MSG and MTG) satellites in GEO.

The fifth Space Based Infrared System Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (SBIRS GEO-5) satellite built by Lockheed Martin, has been operationally accepted by the U.S. Space Force less than a year after being launched into orbit.

NASA has awarded a contract to Lockheed Martin Space to build the Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV), a small, lightweight rocket to launch rock, sediment, and atmospheric samples from the surface of the Red Planet.

The launch of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C52 is scheduled at 0029 UTC on 14 February 2022 from the First Launch Pad of Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.

Tesat-Spacecom, Germany, said it is expanding its manufacturing footprint into the United States to support its U.S. government and commercial customers.