Satellite News

Elements have arrived in French Guiana for the next Vega launcher, which is scheduled for a November mission from the Spaceport to deploy Europe’s LISA Pathfinder.

Preparations for Proton-M launches resume at the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan after temporary suspension after the crash in May, Tass reported.

The first launch of a Proton-M carrier rocket after the latest failure in May is expected to take place in a period from 28 to 30 August 2015, a source in the Russian space sector was quoted as saying by TASS.

Rocket: Chang Zheng-3B/Yuanzheng-1; Payload: BDS M1-S, BDS M2-S; Date: 25 July 2015, 1229 UTC; Launch site: Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China. The two navigation satellites reached their target orbits three and a half hours after the launch.

Europe’s ninth and tenth Galileo satellites have crossed the Atlantic, touching down in French Guiana ahead of their joint launch this September.

Rocket: Delta IV Medium-plus (5,4); Payload: WGS-7 (Wideband Global SATCOM 7); Date: 24 July 2015, 0007 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. The satellite was successfully placed into geostationary transfer orbit.

Components for another Ariane 5 have arrived in French Guiana – with the latest heavy-lift vehicle scheduled to orbit two telecommunications spacecraft during September: NBN Co 1A for Australia’s National Broadband Network, and ARSAT-2 for Argentinean satellite operator ARSAT.

The transportation spacecraft Soyuz TMA-17M carrying an international crew of Expedition ISS-44/45, consisting of Roskosmos cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and U.S. astronaut Kjell Lindgren, has successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS). However, just as last year during the launch of Soyuz TMA-14M, one of the vessel’s solar panels did not initially deploy.