Satellite News

Arianespace has inaugurated FCube (Fregat Fuelling Facility), the new building dedicated to fuelling the Fregat upper stage of the Soyuz launch vehicle. Located at the Guiana Space Center, Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, this new facility will give Arianespace greater flexibility in managing its launch manifest, the company said.

Orbital ATK, Inc. received a US$23.6 million contract from the U.S. Air Force’s Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) Office to launch the ORS-5 SensorSat spacecraft in mid-2017, using a rocket from the company’s Minotaur launch vehicle family.

The U.S. Air Force and its mission partners are scheduled to launch the 10th Boeing-built Global Positioning System IIF satellite aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle on 15 July. The launch window opens at 1536 UTC and will remain open for 18 minutes.

Rocket: PSLV-XL; Payload: three DMC3 satellites, CBNT-1, DeOrbitSail; Date: 10 June 2015, 1628 UTC; Launch site: Satish Dhawan Space Centre, India. The rocket successfully put the five British satellites into the intended Sun-synchronous orbit after a flawless take-off.

Orbital ATK, Inc. has signed a US$98 million agreement with Lockheed Martin to provide the launch abort motor for the Orion human spaceflight capsule’s Launch Abort System (LAS). The Orion spacecraft will launch aboard NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS).

Due to additional checks as part of the preparation of mission VA224 with Star One C4 and MSG-4, the launch initially scheduled for 8 July 2015 was postponed for a few days.

On 5 July 2015, at 0711 UTC, the logistics spacecraft Progress M-28M docked in the automatic mode with the Docking Compartment (DC) Pirs of the International Space Station (ISS) Russian Segment.

Rocket: Soyuz-U; Payload: Progress M-28M (Progress 60P); Date: 3 July 2015, 0455 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The spacecraft separated from the third stage of the launch vehicle normally. Less than 10 minutes after launch, the resupply ship reached preliminary orbit and deployed its solar arrays and navigational antennas as planned.