Satellite News

The Progress Space Rocket Center has signed an agreement with the Center for the Certification of Rocket and Space Activity on certifying four Soyuz-5 medium-class rockets that will undergo flight tests in 2022-2025.

Rocket: Soyuz 2-1a; Payload: Soyuz MS-12; Date: 14 March 2019, 1914 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The crewed vessel arrived at its target orbit less than nine minutes after liftoff.

The Vega launch, designated Flight VV14 in Arianespace’s numbering system, which will deliver the PRISMA (PRecursore IperSpettrale della Missione Applicativa) Earth observation satellite to Sun-synchronous orbit, has been rescheduled to allow for additional checks.

The Vega-C launch system recently passed its Critical Design Review and is now ready to complete manufacturing and final testing as part of the qualification phase.

Rocket: Chang Zheng 3B; Payload: ChinaSat 6C; Date: 9 March 2019, 1628 UTC; Launch site: Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China. The satellite was successfully deployed into geostationary transfer orbit.

The launch of a United Launch Alliance Delta IV carrying the Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS-10) mission for the U.S. Air Force has been delayed to allow for additional troubleshooting to resolve some off-nominal data indications.

Russia’s Khrunichev State Space Research Center is developing a programme jointly with the State Space Corporation Roskosmos to boost the reliability and efficiency of Proton-M rockets and Briz-M upper stages in the next three years, the Khrunichev said on its website.

China announced that the country’s new solid rocket booster, with 200-tonne thrust engine, completed hot firing tests, proving its readiness for commercial launches.