Satellite News

Indian Space Research Organisation plans to carry out an experimental launch of the GSLV Mark III at the end of May end the beginning of une, its Chairman K Radhakrishnan was quoted as saying.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin announced that Soyuz launches from the new Vostochny cosmodrome are to start 2015, followed by the first manned Angara launch in 2018.

Rocket: Delta IV Medium-plus; Payload: GPS IIF-5; Date: 21 February 2014, 0159 UTC; Launch Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. Satellite manufacturer Boeing received the satellite’s first signals approximately three and a half hours later.

System-level tests of the Angara Launch System continue at Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia. The engineering mock-up of the light-lift Angara launch vehicle was rolled out of the Integration-and-Test Facility (ITF) and installed at the Launch Complex on 17 February.

Orbital Sciences Corporation has signed a commercial launch contract with Skybox Imaging to carry six high-resolution imaging and video-capable spacecraft into low-Earth orbit (LEO) in late 2015 from Vandenberg Air Force Base.

A United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket is to launch the U.S. Air Force’s GPS IIF-5 satellite from Cape Canaveral on 21 February (UTC).

NASA said it is pursuing new partnerships and collaborations in an Asteroid Grand Challenge to accelerate NASA’s existing planetary defence work, which will help find all asteroid threats to human population and know what to do about them. In parallel, NASA is developing an Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) — a first-ever mission to identify, capture and redirect an asteroid to a safe orbit of Earth’s moon for future exploration by astronauts in the 2020s.

Rocket: Proton M/Briz M; Payload: Turksat 4A; Date: 14 February 2013, 2109 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The rocket lifted off as planned.