Satellite News

NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies to provide launch services for the Sentinel-6A mission. Launch is currently targeted for November 2020, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 Full Thrust rocket from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Iridium Communications Inc. announced that the fourth Iridium NEXT launch has been targeted by SpaceX for 23 December 2017 at 0126 UTC from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Israel’s Space Communication (Spacecom) has signed a deal with SpaceX to launch two communication satellites, after a Falcon 9 rocket with Spacecom’s Amos 6 on board exploded on the launch pad in 2016.

Bigelow Aerospace and United Launch Alliance (ULA) are working together to launch a B330 expandable module on ULA’s Vulcan launch vehicle. The launch would place a B330 outfitted module in Low Lunar Orbit by the end of 2022 to serve as a lunar depot.

Rocket: Soyuz-2.1a; Payload: Progress MS-07 [Progress P 68]; Date: 14 October 2017, 0846 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The Progress MS-07 cargo spacecraft was accurately placed on the target orbit for the ISS resupplying mission. This was the twelfth Soyuz family mission in 2017.

Rocket: Atlas V; Payload: NROL-52; Date: 15 October 2017, 0728 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. Officials said the classified payload was successfully launched on behalf of the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

The first full-scale model of the rocket motor that will propel Ariane 6 and Vega-C into orbit has been cast and filled with inert propellant for testing at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

Rocket: Rokot/Briz KM; Payload: Sentinel-5P; Date: 13 October 2017, 0927 UTC; Launch site: Plesetsk, Russia. The satellite was successfully injected at approximately 852 km altitude and 98.75 degrees inclination.