Satellite News

In order to allow Hispasat to perform complementary checks on its Amazonas 4A satellite, Arianespace will reschedule the Ariane 5 mission originally planned for 7 March.

The launcher for Arianespace’s initial Vega flight of 2014 began its build-up this week at the Spaceport in French Guiana, marking the first step in a mission campaign that will lead to its orbiting of the DZZ-HR high-resolution observation satellite.

On the night of 12-13 February 2014 (local time) the GLONASS-M #54 spacecraft left ISS-Reshetnev’s facilities and was transported by air to the Plesetsk cosmodrome.

Boeing’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) recently completed a hardware design review and software safety test, bringing it closer to launching the Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 spacecraft.

Airbus Defence and Spac has been awarded a EUR60 million contract by the European Space Agency (ESA) to continue definition and feasibility studies in 2014 for the new Ariane 6 European launcher.

NanoRacks announced successful deployment of the first two cubesats from the International Space Station (ISS) that will be the largest cubesat deployment in history. The first two cubesats are part of a constellation of 28 satellites for its customer, Planet Labs.

The campaign in support of delivery into orbit of the Russia’s Ekspress AT1 and Ekspress AT2 direct broadcast satellites has been started at Baikonur. The Proton M/Briz M/Ekspress AT Duo is to lift off mid-March.

Rocket: Ariane 5 ECA; Payload: ABS-2, Athena-Fidus; Date: 6 February 2014, 2130 UTC; Launch site: Kourou, French Guiana. After a weather-related 60-minute delay, the rocket lifted off and successfully deployed its dual payload into geostationary transfer orbit about 30 minutes later.