Satellite News

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. has been awarded a contract valued at C$2.6 million from NASA’s Johnson Space Center to extend its support of the Robotic Work Station on the International Space Station.

Aerojet announced that its AJ26 engine successfully completed a hot fire test at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. Orbital Sciences Corporation (ORB), Aerojet and NASA monitored the full-duration test in support of the Antares rocket programme. This is the eleventh AJ26 engine to be tested at Stennis.

There is ongoing confusion over the number of Proton-M launches that Kazakhstan will allow from the Baikonur cosmodrome in 2013. According to latest reports, Kazakhstan has permitted only 12 of 17 Proton-M rocket launches requested by Russia.

Arianespace’s Ariane 5 flight schedule in 2013 includes the company’s fourth launch of an Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) to the International Space Station, with cargo loading of the large resupply spacecraft now underway in French Guiana.

Arianespace is targeting a total of 12 missions with Ariane 5, Soyuz and Vega in 2013. This was the main message of Arianespace Chairman & CEO Jean-Yves Le Gall during the company’s traditional New Year’s kickoff press conference.

Arianespace and Astrium have signed the launch contract for the VNREDSat-1A Earth observation satellite, on behalf of the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology.

Russia was modernising a booster which U.S. space agency NASA would use for crewed flights, NPO Energomash was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

The European Space Agency has published a list of events with ESA participation in 2013.