Satellite News

NASA has successfully completed the exploration upper stage (EUS) preliminary design review for the Space Launch System rocket.

Rocket: Soyuz 2.1-b; Payload: Hispasat 36W-1; Date:28 January 2017, 0106 UTC; Launch Site: Sinnamary, French Guiana. The satellite separated from the Fregat upper stage 35 minutes after lift-off as planned and was deployed into geostationary transfer orbit. Contact with the spacecraft was established about 17 minutes later.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully ground tested its indigenously developed Cryogenic Upper Stage for GSLV MkIII on 25 January 2017.

Rocket: H-IIA No. 32 (204 configuration); Payload: DSN-2 (X-band defence communication satellite-2, aka Kirameki-2); Date: 24 January 2017, 0744 UTC; Launch site: Tanegashima Space Center, Japan. The launch and the separation of the satellite into geostationary transfer orbit proceeded according to schedule.

The two telecommunications satellites for Arianespace’s first Ariane 5 lift-off of 2017 are undergoing checkout at the Spaceport in preparation for a mid-February flight from French Guiana to geostationary transfer orbit.

Construction of Eutelsat 172B, the first high-power all-electric telecommunications satellite built in Europe, is now complete at the Airbus satellite assembly facilities in Toulouse.

On 20 January 2017, the completed eROSITA X-ray telescope boarded a cargo plane and was transported from Munich, where it had been built at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, to Moscow. It is expect to arrive at the premises of Lavochkin Association, in the Moscow suburb of Khimki on 25 January.

Rocket: Atlas V 401; Payload: SBIRS GEO Flight 3; Date: 21 January 2017, 0042 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. The satellite responded to commands as planned, approximately 37 minutes after lift-off.