Satellite News

The next launch of a GLONASS-M navigation satellite from Plesetsk is scheduled for 16 March, the Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems Company (the producer of GLONASS satellites) announced.

The launch of GISAT-1 onboard GSLV-F10, planned for 5 March 2020, was postponed due to technical reasons, ISRO said.

The 3D-printed thrust chamber assembly of the methane-fuelled M10 rocket engine has passed its first series of hot firing tests. The M10 engine will power the upper stage of future Vega evolutions from 2025.

Russia’s State Space Corporation Roskosmos has scheduled the first launch from the Vostochny spaceport in 2020 for the end of April, Roskosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin said.

Swedish Space Corporation, SSC, and German space tech company Isar Aerospace have signed a long-term contract for testing of a new generation of European rocket engines for minilaunchers at Esrange Space Center in Sweden.

Quantum – the software-programmable satellite ordered by Eutelsat under an ESA Partnership Project – has successfully completed its mechanical test campaign at the Airbus facilities in Toulouse.

The launch of a Proton-M carrier rocket with the Ekspress-80 and Ekspress-103 communications satellites from Baikonur cosmodrome is scheduled for 31 March, the Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems Company said.

NASA has selected SpaceX to provide launch services for the agency’s Psyche mission. The Psyche mission currently is targeted to launch in July 2022 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.