Satellite News

The observation data relay from the Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Daichi to the Data Relay Satellite (DRS) Kodama was interrupted on 5 April, 0526 UTC for unknown reasons.

Eutelsat Communications said that the recent Hotbird 2 anomaly was caused by a solar flare fallout, which however does not appear to have damaged the satellite permanently.

Gazkom’s Yamal 201 satellite failed temporarily, leaving many regions of Russia without main TV channels and Internet access for six hours.

The Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) said that the experimental Universitetsky satellite probably did not stop working as the result of an attack by the U.S., and offered a more likely explanation.

A small Russian experimental satellite stopped working last month, which has now led to speculation in the country’s media that it could have been killed by the U.S. military — intentionally or not.

A Russian early warning satellite has stopped working, leaving the country with just two operational spacecraft of this type, according to the russianforces.org web site.

Sea Launch said significant progress has been made in the investigation into the cause of the unsuccessful Zenit-3SL launch on 30 January and repairs to the Odyssey Launch Platform. The company said it plans to return to flight in October.

The Zefiro 9 solid rocket motor – which is to power the third stage of ESA’s future small launcher Vega – failed in a recent test for unknown reasons.