Satellite News

ULA has ordered 20 more RD-180 rocket engines from Russia, on top of 29 engines ordered last year.

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: 11 Orbcomm OG2 satellites (FM 102, 105, 108, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117 and 118); Date: 22 December 2015, 0129 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. The eleven OG2 satellites were successfully separated from the Falcon 9 launch vehicle into the proper insertion orbit. Nine minutes following lift-off was the first-ever successful landing of the Falcon 9’s first stage booster at Landing Zone 1 (formerly Complex 13) at CCAFS.

After thorough examination, NASA managers have decided to suspend the planned March 2016 launch of the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission. The decision follows unsuccessful attempts to repair a leak in a section of the prime instrument in the science payload.

Rocket: Soyuz-2.1a; Payload: Progress-MS1 [Progress-MS, Progress 62P]; Date: 21 December 2015, 0844:39 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The cargo spacecraft was released into orbit as scheduled less than 10 minutes after lift-off.

SpaceX confirmed that the company is targeting launch of the 11 Orbcomm satellites aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on 22 December 2015 at 0129 UTC.

The Sentinel-3A satellite successfully passed a two-week functional test series. The platform and instrument subsystems have been deemed healthy and are ready to carry out their mission.

There’s once again some confusion surrounding the launches of Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr rockets, which however May be the result of sloppy reporting. In any case, the launch of the PAZ Earth observation satellite for Hisdesat, scheduled for 15 December, did not take place as planned. Just a technical delay?

NASA ordered a second Boeing crew mission to the International Space Station. This is the third in a series of four guaranteed orders NASA will make under the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contracts.