Satellite News

Alliant Techsystems awarded United Space Alliance (USA) a US$257 Million contract to perform subcontractor support to ATK for the NASA’s Ares I and Ares 1-X programmes through the Design, Development, Test and Engineering (DDT&E) phase.

Rocket: Rokot/Briz-KM; Payload: GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer); Date: 17 March 2009, 1421 UTC; Site: Plesetsk, Russia. The spacecraft with a fuelled mass of 1,052 kg was successfully deployed into the intended near Sun synchronous orbit of approximately 280 km altitude with an inclination of 96.7 degrees.

Space shuttle Discovery and its seven-member crew lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 2343 UTC on 15 March to deliver the final set of power-generating solar array wings and a new crew member to the International Space Station.

This afternoon, European Space Agency’s GOCE satellite was supposed to be lofted into orbit by a Russian Rokot vehicle from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Northern Russia.

NASA has selected United Launch Services for the launch of two Science Mission Directorate and two Space Operations Mission Directorate payloads under the NASA Launch Services contract.

In order to carry out additional checks on the ground segment of the Herschel and Planck programmes, Arianespace and ESA have jointly agreed to postpone the launch initially planned for 16 April.
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NASA is still targeting 15 March (UTC) as launch date for Space Shuttle Discovery on the STS-119 mission. As a consequence, lift-off of WGS 2 aboard an Atlas V has been postponed.
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The final pieces of the Ares I-X flight test rocket left the Alliant Techsystems manufacturing facility in Promontory, Utah/USA, and began a 3,500-km journey to its launch site at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
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