Satellite News

The launch of the first batch of One Web satellites aboard an Arianespace Soyuz, originally scheduled for later this month, was pushed back to the fourth quarter of 2018.

Rocket: Chang Zheng 11; Payload: five Zhuhai-1 satellites; Date: 26 April 2018, 0442 UTC; Launch site: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China.

NASA’s next mission to Mars, Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight), is scheduled to launch Saturday, 5 May (UTC) on a first-ever mission to study the heart of Mars.

Arianespace and the European Space Agency (ESA) signed a frame contract defining procedures for the procurement of launch services by ESA, especially for its own missions.

French space agency CNES has chosen the Space Alliance, formed by Telespazio (Leonardo 67%, Thales 33%) and Thales Alenia Space (Thales 67%, Leonardo 33%), to extend the fibre-optic communications system (STFO) at the Guiana Space Center (CSG), Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, to include the new launch complex under construction for Ariane 6 (ELA4).

Iridium Communications Inc. announced that all five Iridium NEXT satellites for its sixth launch are in processing at SpaceX’s west coast launch site, Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Rocket: Rokot; Payload: Sentinel-3B; Date: 25 April 2018, 1757 UTC; Launch site: Plesetsk, Russia. Rokot’s upper stage delivered Sentinel-3B into its planned orbit.

Due to additional technical checks with the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) GSAT-11 satellite, to be conducted from the ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) located at Bengalaru, the Ariane 5 launch initially planned for 25 May 2018, VA243, has been postponed.