Satellite News

The fifth Vega launcher continues its integration process in French Guiana for a mission this summer to orbit Europe’s Sentinel-2A Earth observation satellite.

The U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) and Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) have formally amended the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between the two organisations for Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) Certification of the Falcon 9 Launch System.

SpaceX completed the first key flight test of its Crew Dragon spacecraft, a vehicle designed to carry astronauts to and from space. The successful Pad Abort Test was the first flight test of SpaceX’s launch abort system.

An Ariane 5 was moved from the Launcher Integration Building – where it underwent the basic build-up process by industrial prime contractor Airbus Defence and Space – to the Final Assembly Building at Kourou. This step marks the transfer of responsibility to Arianespace for the payload integration, final validations and launch.

A major milestone in the development of ISRO’s next generation launch vehicle, GSLV MkIII, was achieved on successful long duration hot test (635 seconds) of high thrust cryogenic engine (CE20) on 28 April at ISRO Propulsion Complex, Mahendragiri, Tamil Nadu.

India will launch six more satellites — two communication satellites, three navigation satellites and a space science satellite — in 2015-16.

Inmarsat confirmed that its third Global Xpress (GX) satellite – Inmarsat-5 F3 – has safely arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in anticipation of its launch later this month.

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has delivered the first spacecraft for the FORMOSAT-7/COSMIC-2 weather forecasting constellation to the National Space Organisation (NSPO) in Taiwan, where it has successfully passed a series of systems checks.