Satellite News

The next Ariane 5 mission has moved into its final preparation phase as the vehicle for this sixth flight of 2009 is delivered to Arianespace.

State-owned Iranian news channel Press TV reports that the country’s Mesbah satellite was ready for launch (yet again), this time from Iran and not from Russia as planned earlier. This could also indicate an improvement of Iran’s satellite launch capacities.

Rocket: Delta II; Payload: WorldView 2; Date: 8 October 2009, 1851 UTC; Site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, USA. The commercial imaging satellite was deployed into its target orbit approx. 62 minutes after lift-off.
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The inaugural launch of Orbital Sciences’ Minotaur IV will not take place on 31 October (UTC) as planned because of problems with the launcher, the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center said.
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Stork Fokker has signed an important contract in relation to the Ariane 5 program. Dutch Space (part of EADS Astrium) has again selected the company to produce engine frames for at least 35 Ariane 5 launchers.
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After lifting off from the Spaceport in French Guiana, Ariane 5 injected its two payloads, Amazonas-2 and SATCOMBw-2a, into highly accurate orbits.

On 1 October another test firing of the Universal Rocket Module (URM)-1 for Russia’s Angara family of launch vehicles – currently under development – took place at the Rocket & Space Industry Research & Testing Center near Moscow.