Satellite News

Rocket: PSLV-C31; Payload: IRNSS-1E; Date: 20 January 2016, 0401 UTC; Launch site: Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota, India. The navigation satellite was placed into a 288 km x 20566 km x 19.2 degrees transfer orbit.

Russia’s state commission has not yet made a decision to postpone the launch of the Proton-M carrier rocket with the European communications satellite Eutelsat 9B from 27 January to 29 January (UTC), a source at the Baikonur Cosmodrome said according to TASS.

The first launch of a Soyuz-2 from Russia’s new Vostochny spaceport may be carried out in the second half of April, head of the State Corporation for Space Activity Roskosmos Igor Komarov was quoted as saying.

The launch vehicle for Arianespace’s first mission of 2016 has received its payload, as the initial Intelsat EpicNG high-throughput satellite has been mated to the Ariane 5 at the Spaceport in French Guiana.

Roskosmos has presented its ten-year development plan to the Russian government, which includes the construction of a prototype engine that uses a nuclear reactor to propel it on expeditions into distant space.

Rocket: Falcon 9 v1.1; Payload: Jason-3; Date: 17 January 2016, 1842 UTC; Launch site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, USA. The satellite was successfully placed into a 1,295 km x 1,320 km x 66.0 degrees orbit. However, the attempt to land the rocket’s first stage on a barge failed.

A 48-hour countdown has begun for the launch of the fifth satellite of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System, IRNSS-1E, on board PSLV-C31 from the spaceport of Sriharikota on 20 January.

China will send two new models of carrier rocket in the Chang Zheng series on their maiden space trips in 2016, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASC) said.