Satellite News

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: 52 Starlink satellites; Date: 18 December 2021, 0942 UTC; Launch site: Vandenberg Space Force Station, USA. The satellites were deployed into a 53.22 degrees inclination orbit.

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: Türksat 5B; Date: 19 December 2021, 0358 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, USA. The satellite was deployed into a geostationary transfer orbit.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is confirmed for the target launch date of 24 December at 1220 UTC.

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft are undergoing integrated testing inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to ensure they are “go” for launch of the Artemis I mission early next year.

Isar Aerospace and the German Space Agency at DLR [German Aerospace Center] have announced the selection of the institutional payloads for the maiden flight of the “Spectrum” rocket planned for the end of 2022 as part of the microlauncher competition.

Three Soyuz-2 rocket launches next year are set to perform rideshare missions, according to data posted on the website of the Glavkosmos commercial launch operator (part of the State Space Corporation Roskosmos).

Rocket: Chang Zheng 3B; Payload: Tianlian 2-02; Date: 13 December 2021, 1609 UTC; Launch site: Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China. The satellite was deployed into a 182 km x 35,824 km x 27.06 degrees geostationary transfer orbit.

Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems has taken over control of the Ekspress-AMU3 and Ekspress-AMU7 telecom satellites that were launched from Baikonur the day before.