Satellite News

Northrop Grumman Corporation has been awarded two additional missions by NASA under the Commercial Resupply Services contract-2 (CRS-2) with launches occurring in 2023.

The launch of the South Korean Earth observation satellite CAS500-1 from the Baikonur space centre aboard a Soyuz 2.1a is scheduled for March 2021, Glavkosmos Launch Services was quoted as saying.

For its seventh launch of the year, and the 17th by Vega since its introduction in 2012, Arianespace will orbit two satellites: SEOSAT-Ingenio for ESA, on behalf of the Spanish Center for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), and TARANIS for French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales). The launch is scheduled for 16 November 2020 at 0152 UTC, and the mission will last one hour and 42 minutes.

Omnispace has signed a launch agreement with Exolaunch, which will deliver two Thales Alenia Space-built satellites into orbit aboard SpaceX’s rideshare missions.

Due to impending weather and uncertainty related to Tropical Storm Eta, ULA is now targeting 12 November at 2318 UTC for the launch of the NROL-101 mission for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, pending range approval.

Arianespace announced a new contract to launch a communications satellite into geostationary orbit using Ariane 5.

Rocket: PSLV; Payload: EOS-1 (formerly RISAT-2BR2), nine customer satellites; Date: 7 November 2020, 0941 UTC; Launch site: Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota, India. The satellites were released into approx. 565 km x 577 km x 36.90 degrees orbits.

Rocket: Ceres-1; Payload: Tianqi-11; Date: 7 November 2020, 0712 UTC; Launch site: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China. The satellite was deployed into a 485 km x 501 km x 97.41 degrees Sun-synchronous orbit. The launch marked the second successful attempt by a Chinese private rocket firm since July 2019 following two failed launches in 2018 and early 2019.