Satellite News

Rocket: Antares; Payload: mass simulator, four piggyback satellites; Date: 21 April 2013, 1000 UTC, Launch site: Wallops Island, USA. After another scrub on 20 April owing to upper-level winds, today’s launch went as scheduled without any hitch.

Rocket: Soyuz 2-1A; Payload: Bion-M1, several microsatellites (BeeSat-2, BeeSat-3, SOMP, OSSI-1, AIST); Date: 19. April 2013, 1000 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The project is to study the reactions of living organisms exposed to microgravity and artificial gravity.

Orbital Sciences Corporation announced that the next launch attempt for the new Antares rocket will be no earlier than Saturday, 20 April at 21 UTC owing to bad weather on Friday.

The launch of Orbital’s new Antares rocket from Wallops Island was scrubbed today after an umbilical seperated prematurely from the launcher’s second stage 12 minutes before the scheduled lift-off.

Anik G1 satellite is successfully performing post-launch manoeuvres according to plan. The satellite deployed its solar arrays on schedule following its launch aboard a Proton Briz M launch vehicle provided by International Launch Services (ILS) from the Baikonur Space Center in Kazakhstan.

The Eutelsat 3D satellite of Eutelsat Communications arrived on 13 April at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and is now undergoing final preparations for launch by a Proton Briz M rocket supplied by ILS. Lift-off is planned on 14 May from 16.02 UTC with spacecraft separation scheduled to occur after a nine hour 13 minute flight.

Rocket: Proton M/Briz M; Payload: Anik G1; Date: 15 April 2013, 1836 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Payload separation was to occur approximately 9 hours, 13 minutes after lift-off [too late for this issue].

On 13 April, Orbital conducted the wet dress rehearsal for the Antares rocket in preparation its test flight scheduled for later this week on 17 April.