Satellite News

Astrobotic and United Launch Alliance (ULA) announced that Astrobotic’s Peregrine Lunar Lander will be onboard a ULA launch vehicle in 2019.

Aerojet Rocketdyn said it successfully tested its third RS-25 engine flight controller at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The flight controller tested is slated to fly on the inaugural mission of the SLS which will propel the Orion capsule around the Moon and return it back to Earth.

InterOrbital Systems (IOS) said it is nearing the completion of its N1 GTV launch vehicle which incorporates the company’s new high-efficiency CPM 2.0 filament-wound tank assembly, its new rocket engine gimballing system, its new CPM controller, and its new in-house developed guidance system.

SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk has downplayed the chances of a successful inaugural flight for his Falcon Heavy space launch vehicle, admitting there is a “good chance it would not make it to orbit in its first launch.”

RSC Energia specialists at the Baikonur launch site have successfully completed operations to fill a manned transportation spacecraft of the new series Soyuz MS-05 with propellant components and compressed gases.

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) announced that it selected United Launch Alliance’s (ULA’s) commercially developed Atlas V rocket to launch the first two missions of its Dream Chaser cargo system in support of NASA’s Cargo Resupply Services 2 (CRS2) contract.

Russia’s Progress Rocket and Space Centre is ready to manufacture new Soyuz-5 medium-class carrier rocket (a.k.a. Feniks), Progress CEO Alexander Kirilin was quoted as saying.

Rocket: Soyuz 2-1.a/Fregat; Payload: Kanopus-V-IK spacecraft and 72 secondary payloads; Date: 14 July 2017, 0636 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The satellites were accurately placed on target orbits during a mission that lasted almost ten hours. This was the eighth Soyuz family launch in 2017.