Satellite News

ESA and a team of European industrial contractors led by QinetiQ have finalised an agreement with Sierra Nevada Corporation for the use of Europe’s International Berthing Docking Mechanism on the Dream Chaser spaceplane.

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: SES-10; Date: 30 March 2017, 2227 UTC; Launch site: Kennedy Space Center, USA. SES-10 became the first geostationary commercial satellite to ever launch on a rocket with a first-stage that had flown before.

The Progress Space Rocket Center has received the first four tested engines for the third stage of Soyuz rockets, CEO of Energomash rocket engine producer Igor Arbuzov was quoted as saying.

An RS-25 rocket engine with a new flight-model engine controller and flight configuration software was successfully tested for the first time at NASA’s Stennis Space Center.

The launch of the ULA Atlas V rocket carrying the OA-7 Cygnus spacecraft for Orbital ATK and NASA has been postponed indefinitely.

At the time of writing this, the upcoming Ariane 5 launch with the SGDC and Koreasat-7 satellites remained scheduled for 23 March (UTC).

Rocket: H-IIA; Payload: IGS Radar 5; Date: 17 March 2017, 0120 UTC; Launch site: Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. The reconnaissance satellite was successfully placed in orbit.

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: EchoStar 23 [EchoStar XXIII]; Date: 16 March 2017, 0600 UTC, Launch site: Kennedy Space Center, USA. The satellite was succvessfully deployed into geostationary transfer orbit.