Satellite News

Russia will reportedly launch South Africa’s SumbandilaSat late 2008 or early 2009 — not as originally planned from a submarine but apparently as piggyback payload on a rocket lifting off from Baikonur.

The next Falcon 1 launch will be delayed a few days after SpaceX decided to replace a component in the second stage engine LOX supply line.

Another Proton M launch vehicle, this time carrying three satellites under Russian Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS), is scheduled for launch on 25 September (UTC) — just several days after the successful Nimiq 4 launch aboard a Proton M.

Sea Launch company has signed a launch services agreement with O3b Networks Limited for up to two launches in support of their Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) telecommunications satellite constellation, with the first launch set for late 2010.

Space Exploration Technologies, Inc. (SpaceX) said that it plans to launch its next Falcon 1 rocket in late September as previously scheduled.

Arianespace as signed a deal with the Russian space agency Roskosmos to acquire 10 new Soyuz rockets for launch from French Guiana.

Rocket: Soyuz M/Briz M; Payload: Nimiq 4; Date: 19 September 2008, 2148 UTC; Site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The launch vehicle carried the 5-ton satellite for 9 hours and 11 minutes, releasing it into geosynchronous transfer orbit.

The 10 October launch date of NASA’s shuttle mission STS-125 to the Hubble Space Telescope is in jeopardy because of a problem with insulation on the replacement batteries for the telescope, and (possibly) also because of a malfunction aboard the spacecraft itself.