Satellite News

The third Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite built by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Navy was encapsulated into its payload fairing on 18 December. It is scheduled to launch 20 January aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Rocket: GSLV Mk-III; Payload: Crew Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment (CARE); Date: 18 December 2014, 0400 UTC; Launch site: Satish Dhawan Space Center, Sriharikota, India. The mission, the first experimental flight of India’s next generation launch vehicle, was successful.

Rocket: Soyuz ST-B; Payload: four O3b satellites; Date: 18 December 2014, 1837 UTC; Launch site: Sinnamary, French Guiana. The third batch of four spacecraft in the O3b medium Earth orbit (MEO) constellation, operated by O3b Networks, was successfully launched.

NASA has selected SpaceX to provide launch services for the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) mission. TESS will launch aboard a Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle, with lift-off targeted for August 2017 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

NASA and SpaceX announced the launch of SpaceX’s fifth commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station now will occur no earlier than Tuesday, 6 January.

The launch of Russia’s Strela rocket with a Kondor-E radar imaging satellite from the Baikonur cosmodrome has been postponed until 19 December.

The second Global Xpress (GX) satellite – Inmarsat-5 F2 – has arrived at Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, in anticipation of its launch early in 2015.

Airbus DS Space Systems engineers have developed an upper-stage engine demonstrator for the European Space Agency (ESA). Results of the recently completed test campaign are promising; the engine meets all requirements to replace other models currently in service, such as on the Vega rocket.