Satellite News

A test fuelling of space shuttle Endeavour’s external tank revealed no gaseous hydrogen leaks, verifying recent repairs were successful, NASA managers confirmed.
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Rocket: Proton M/Briz M; Payload: Sirius FM-5; Date: 30 June 2009, 1910 UTC; Site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The satellite was to be deployed at about 0424 UTC (too late for this issue).

DigitalGlobe announced that its WorldView-2 high-resolution eight-band multi-spectral satellite is scheduled to launch aboard a Delta II on 6 October 2009 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Rocket: Delta IV Medium+ (4,2); Payload: GOES-O (GOES-14); Date: 27 June 2009, 2251 UTC; Site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. Following a nominal four hour, 21-minute flight, the Delta IV deployed the spacecraft.

On 19 June 2009 a first stage for the South Korean space launch vehicle (KSLV-1) manufactured and shipped by Khrunichev Space Center in Moscow was delivered by a big AN 124 100 “Ruslan” aircraft from Russia to the South Korean port city of Pusan, from where the stage will be transported by sea to the Naro Space Center.
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The world’s largest civilian telecommunications satellite, TerreStar 1, has made initial contact with its Ariane 5 ECA heavy-lift vehicle in preparations for lift-off from the Spaceport in French Guiana on 1 July.
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Rocket: Zenit-3SLB; Payload: Measat-3a (Measat 1R); Date: 21 June 2009, 2150 UTC; Site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The rocket successfully inserted the communications satellite into a geosynchronous transfer orbit.

Following an agreement between ESA, Krunichev Space Centre and Eurockot Launch Services, ESA’s next Earth Explorer mission SMOS and a secondary payload, the technology demonstrator Proba-2 satellite, will now launch on 2 November 2009.