Satellite News

The U.S. Air Force is scheduled to launch the eighth Boeing-built Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF satellite aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V launch vehicle, on 29 October. The launch window opens at 1721 UTC and will remain open for 18 minutes.

Rocket: Chang Zheng 2C; Payload: Shijian 11-08; Date: 27 October 2014, 0659 UTC; Launch site: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China. State media said the launch was successful.

Both satellite passengers for Arianespace’s sixth Ariane 5 mission of 2014 are now in French Guiana, marking a new milestone as preparations continue ahead of this heavy-lift flight scheduled for early December.

SpaceX’s Dragon cargo spacecraft splashed down on Saturday, 25 October in the Pacific Ocean, approximately 480 km west of Baja California, returning 1,470 kg of NASA cargo and science samples from the International Space Station (ISS).

Russia’s Progress M-24M cargo resupply spacecraft has undocked from the International Space Station (ISS), the Mission Control Center (MCC) said.

Within the scope of its preparations for the VV04 mission, the European Space Agency (ESA), in conjunction with French space agency CNES, has decided to carry out additional flight trajectory analyses for the scheduled Vega launch of IXV.

The first launch of the heavy class rocket Angara-A5 is scheduled for 25 December, the deputy general designer of the Khrunichev Space Center, Yuri Bakhvalov was quoted as saying.

Rocket: Chang Zheng 3C/G2; Payload: Chang’e 5-T1, 4M; Dare: 23 October 2014, 1759 UTC; Launch site: Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China. The Chang’e 5-T1 test spacecraft is due to make a lunar flyby before returning to Earth in eight days’ time.