Satellite News

Arianespace’s Ariane launcher today marks the 30th anniversary of its maiden flight. The historic inaugural lift-off occurred on 24 December 1979 from the Spaceport in French Guiana, utilising an Ariane 1 version that placed a payload of 1,645 kg into orbit.
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The world’s first commercial, high-resolution, Earth imaging satellite, Ikonos, achieved its 10th year of operation on 24 September 2009.

The U.S. Air Force’s fleet of Global Positioning System (GPS) Block IIR and IIR-M satellites, designed and built by Lockheed Martin, has accumulated 100 years of successful in-orbit operations.
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This month marks a decade of success for NASA’s QuikSCAT mission, one that continues to provide a wealth of information about Earth’s climate since its launch 19 June 1999.

TerraSAR-X, the German radar satellite, has completed two successful years of service since its launch on 15 June 2007.

The United States Air Force’s Defense Support Program Flight 14, built by Northrop Grumman Corporation, is celebrating its 20th year of on-orbit operations. DSP Flight 14 was launched on 14 June 1989 on a Titan IV launch vehicle.

SSTL and ISC Kosmotras are celebrating 10 years of successful co-operation, since the SSTL minisatellite UoSAT-12 made history as the first successful orbital injection by the Dnepr launch vehicle in April 1999. But the overall record of the rocket has been not quite as successful.
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The GIOVE-B navigation satellite has successfully completed its first year in orbit. The 500 kg satellite, which was built by an industrial team led by Astrium under contract to the European Space Agency, is the second of two in-orbit demonstration missions for Europe’s Galileo satellite navigation system.