Satellite News

Rocket: Atlas V; Payload: GOES-S; Date: 1 March 2018, 2202 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. The rocket lifted off as scheduled, and its upper stage had performed two of three planned burns at the time of writing this. Separation of the weather satellite from the Centaur upper stage was expected at 0134 UTC on 2 February (too late for this issue).

The four O3b Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites for Arianespace’s first Soyuz mission of 2018 have been integrated with their launcher’s Fregat upper stage, marking a key milestone as preparations continue for a 6 March lift-off from French Guiana.

NASA’s InSight spacecraft has arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in central California to begin final preparations for a launch this May.

China is planning its first sea-launch of satellites carried by a Chang Zheng rocket, according to an aerospace official.

Rocket: H-2A; Payload: IGS-Optical 6; Date: 27 February 2018, 0434 UTC; Launch site: Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. The imaging satellite was deployed into a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of approximately 500-kilometers, inclined 97.4 degrees, approx. 20 minutes after lift-off.

The Independent Enquiry Commission formed after the Ariane 5 launcher’s trajectory deviation during its 25 January 2018 mission issued its conclusions on Thursday, 22 February.

SpaceX postponed an attempt to launch a Falcon 9 rocket and the Spanish Hispasat 30W-6 (aka Hispasat 1F) communications satellite to perform tests on the rocket’s nose cone.

A bad weather forecast has prompted Japanese space officials to delay the launch of an H-2A rocket with a high-resolution government-owned reconnaissance satellite by at least 48 hours until 27 February (UTC).