Satellite News

Rocket: Chang Zheng 2D; Payload: Yunhai-1; Date: 11 November 2016, 2314 UTC; Launch site: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre, China. The weather satellite was deployed into a 750 km x 98 degrees Sun-synchronous orbit.

Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems provided some some details regarding the auxiliary payload on the Atlas V/WorldView-4 mission.

Rocket: Atlas V 401; Payload: WorldView-4 (fka GeoEye-2) plus seven cubesats; Date: 11 November 2016, 1830 UTC; Launch site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, USA. The imaging satellite was deployed into a sun-synchronous orbit. The cubesats were launched for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office and successfully deployed after a two-hour secondary mission.

Rocket: Chang Zheng-11; Payload: XPNAV-1 plus Xaiaoxiang-1 and three Lishui-1 nanosatellites; Date: 9 November 2016, 2342 UTC; Launch site: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China. The satellites were deployed into low-Earth orbit.

Arianespace has finished the Ariane 5 launcher with the installation of the payload fairing over the four Galileo spacecraft and their payload dispenser.

Analytical Graphics, Inc.’s (AGI) Commercial Space Operations Center (ComSpOC) said that it is tracking two apparent payloads of the recent Chang Zheng 5 launch, one of which is the reported Shijian-17 experimental satellite.

Space Systems Loral (SSL) and Hughes Network Systems, a subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation, announced that the EchoStar XIX satellite, which SSL designed and built for Hughes, has arrived at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, where it will be launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle.

The launch of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V carrying the GOES-R weather satellite for NASA and NOAA is being rescheduled.