Satellite News

Iridium Communications Inc. announced that all 10 Iridium NEXT satellites for its fifth launch have arrived and are in processing at SpaceX’s west coast launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

ILS and UK headquartered Effective Space announce their intent to contract to deliver two of Effective Space’s “Space Drone” spacecraft into orbit. The Proton Briz M rideshare launch is planned for 2020 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Rocket: Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat; Payload: four O3b satellites; Date: 9 March 2018, 710:06 UTC; Launch site: Sinnamary, French Guiana. Soyuz deployed its four passengers during a flight of approximately 2 hrs., 22 min. This included the propulsion of Soyuz’ first three stages, as well as four burns of its Fregat upper stage.

Europe’s first mission to Mercury will soon be ready for shipping to the spaceport to begin final preparations for launch.

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: Hispasat 30W-6; Date: 6 March 2018, 0533 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. The satellite was deployed to a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) approximately 33 minutes after launch.

The Flight VS18 mission, which will orbit four O3b Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites for SES, has been postponed to a new target date of 9 March (UTC).

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA’s) GOES-S weather satellite, built by Lockheed Martin, was launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket on 1 March 2018, 2202 UTC from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and has successfully established communications.

The telecommunications satellite Blagovest No. 12, designed and built by ISS-Reshetnev Company, has been safely delivered to its cosmodrome in Baikonur.