Satellite News

Rocket: Proton M/Briz M; Payload: Satmex 8; Date: 26 March 2013, 1906 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Spacecraft separation is scheduled for 0419 UTC [too late for this issue].

A Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) Dragon spacecraft successfully completed the company’s second cargo flight to the International Space Station on 26 March with a 1736 UTC splashdown in the Pacific Ocean a few hundred kilometers west of Baja California, Mexico.

XCOR Aerospace announced the firing of a full piston pump-powered rocket engine. The company said this breakthrough is the foundation for fully reusable spacecraft that can fly multiple times per day, every day.

More than three weeks after arriving at the…Read more

Spacecom, operator of the Amos satellite fleet, announced that Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has selected Space International Services, Ltd. (SIS) to launch the Amos-4 commercial satellite.

Space Exploration Technologies’ (SpaceX) Merlin 1D engine has achieved flight qualification. Through a 28 test qualification programme, the Merlin 1D accumulated 1,970 seconds of total test time, the equivalent run time of over 10 full mission durations, and is now fully qualified to fly on the Falcon 9 rocket.

The U.S. Air Force and Lockheed Martin (LMT) are ready to launch the second Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO-2) spacecraft on 19 March aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch window is 2221 to 2301 UTC.

The test launch of Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Antares rocket from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport’s Pad-0A at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia is targeted to take place between 16 and 18 April at approximately 2000 UTC, the day of launch.