Satellite News

Arianespace’s next Vega mission will orbit Spain’s SEOSAT/INGENIO high-resolution optical imaging platform, which is to monitor the Earth for civil and military uses; and the French Taranis microsatellite, to observe atmospheric emissions that occur above thunderstorms.

Momentus Inc., a commercial space company offering in-space satellite transportation and infrastructure services, and ProXopS, LLC, a Texas-based systems engineering and integration company founded in 2010 with a concentration in space related technologies, announced the execution of a launch agreement for several slots in Vigoride rideshare missions from Q4 2021 to 2023.

United Launch Alliance scrubbed the launch of a spy satellite for the U.S. Department of Defense for the second time this week due to weather-related complications.

Rocket: Soyuz-2.1b/Fregat; Payload: Gonets-M No. 27, Gonets-M No. 28, Gonets-M No. 29, 19 smallsats; Date: 28 September 2020, 1120 UTC; Launch site: Plesetsk, Russia. The Fregat upper stage deployed three Gonets satellites in their operational high-inclination orbit, followed by the release of secondary payloads into Sun-synchronous orbit. [Exact figures were not available at the time of writing.–Ed.]

Northrop Grumman Corporation is set to launch the company’s 14th resupply mission (NG-14) to the International Space Station under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services-2 contract.

Rocket: Chang Zheng 4B; Payload: Huan Jing 2A, Huan Jing 2B (HJ-2A, HJ-2B); Date: 27 September 2020, 0323 UTC; Launch site: Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, China. The satellites were deployed into approx. 600 km x 654 km x 97.98 degrees Sun-synchronous orbits.

NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) to provide launch services for the agency’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission, which includes four secondary payloads.

The U.S. Space Force Space and Missile Systems Center’s Lockheed Martin-built GPS III Space Vehicle 04 (GPS III SV04) satellite was encapsulated within a SpaceX payload fairing at Astrotech Space Operations Florida facility on 21 September in preparation for its upcoming launch on 30 September (UTC) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.