Satellite News

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: 60 Starlink satellites; Date: 6 October 2020, 1129 UTC; Launch site: Kennedy Space Center, USA. The Starlink satellites deployed approximately 1 hour and 1 minute after lift-off.

The launch of Russia’s next-generation GLONASS-K navigation satellite, which has been postponed several times, is being rescheduled from 16 October to 25 October, a space industry source was quoted as saying.

Russia will launch its first Amur reusable methane-fuelled rocket in 2026, State Space Corporation Roskosmos Executive Director for Long-Term Programs and Science Alexander Bloshenko was quoted as saying.

Rocket: Antares; Payload: Cygnus; Date: 3 October 2020, 0116 UTC; Launch site: Wallops Flight Facility, USA. After the nine minute ascent, the S.S. Kalpana Chawla, named for the first woman of Indian descent to fly in space, was deployed into orbit.

SpaceX scrubbed the launch of a GPS III satellite from Florida on 3 October (UTC) two seconds before the planned lift-off, just as the engine ignition sequence was beginning.

Momentus Inc. announced a launch service agreement for deploying Skykraft’s microsatellite on Vigoride’s mission in June 2021. Skykraft’s spacecraft is a pathfinder for a future large LEO constellation, and will be deployed via a new separation ring named EOS and developed by MECANO ID under a CNES contract thanks to the partial financing of the Future Investment Plan.

The qualification test of the Zefiro 9 VT3 engine, an advanced version of the third stage propulsion system already in use on the Vega launcher and specifically enhanced and customised for the new Vega C, was successfully completed recently.

A SpaceX satellite launch from Kennedy Space Center was scrubbed today because of a sensor reading. A few hours before, the launch of a Delta 4-Heavy rocket from rival United Launch Alliance was aborted seconds before lift-off (scheduled for 0354 UTC) from Cape Canaveral.