Satellite News

The U.S. Air Force released a Request for Proposal for an Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Launch Service supporting the Global Positioning System (GPS) III-3 mission scheduled to launch in 2019.

Ad Astra Rocket company said it has successfully completed all milestones and deliverables for the first of its three-year Next Space Technology Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) contract with NASA.

A United Launch Alliance Delta IV Medium (4,2) will launch the AFSPC-6 mission for the U.S. Air Force on 19 August 2016 between 0400 and 0800 UTC from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

Vector Space Systems has finalised an agreement with Finnish-based Iceye to conduct 21 launches for Iceye’s commercial SAR (synthetic aperture radar) satellite constellation. The payload flights, Vector’s first customer flights since it started operations in early 2016, will be conducted over a four-year span as part of a larger partnership with Iceye.

A commission of the Russian state space corporation Roskosmos has rescheduled provisionally to 10 October from 29 August the launch of a Proton M rocket with EchoStar 21 aboard.

Lockheed Martin has delivered DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-4 satellite to Vandenberg Air Force Base.

NASA ordered a second post-certification crewed mission from commercial provider SpaceX in Hawthorne, California.

Rocket: Atlas V 421; Payload: NROL-61 [USA-269]; Date: 28 July 2016, 1237 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. Hazard areas announced ahead of the launch show that the rocket headed towards a geostationary transfer orbit. The classified payload is thought to be a military communications satellite.