Satellite News

Rocket: Soyuz-2-1b; Payload: Resurs-P No. 3 [Resurs P3]; Date: 13 March 2016, 1856 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The remote sensing satellite was accurately placed on a 279 x 452 km x 97.3 degrees orbit 9 minutes, 21 seconds after lift-off. However, one of the satellite’s solar panels apparently did not deploy correctly.

Payload preparation activity for Arianespace’s Soyuz Flight VS14 is underway in French Guiana following the separate deliveries of this upcoming mission’s primary satellite passenger – Sentinel-1B – and the first of three additional payloads that will join it, the Microscope spacecraft.

Space Systems Loral (SSL) announced that the JCSAT-14 satellite, which it designed and built for Sky Perfect JSAT, has arrived at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, where it will launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch vehicle.

NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne have test-fired the Space Launch System’s first RS-25 flight engine, E2059, for 500 seconds at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The Space Launch System (SLS) is the United States’ next-generation heavy lift launch vehicle, and it will be capable of lifting three times more payload capability than any existing launch vehicle.

Rocket: PSLV ‘XL’; Payload: IRNSS-1F; Date: 10 March 2016, 1031 UTC; Launch site: Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, India. Controllers at ISRO’s ground station in Hassan took over command of the 1,425-kilogram satellite soon after its deployment from the PSLV’s fourth stage at 1051 UTC.

The assembly of Russia’s Soyuz-2.1b rocket carrying an advanced Resurs-P Earth remote sensing satellite has been completed, Russian Roskosmos state corporation said in a statement. The rocket is expected to lift off from Baikonur Cosmodrome on 12 March at 1856 UTC.

Orbital Sciences will buy from Russia’s NPO Energomash research and production association eight more RD-181 engines for the Antares rockt, the Russian manufacturer reported on its website.

United Launch Alliance has awarded XCOR Aerospace with a new contract through the United States Air Force to develop an upper stage propulsion system for Vulcan, ULA’s next-generation launch system.