News & Events

Millennium Space Systems completed the final phase of its ALTAIR Pathfinder satellite mission on 17 November. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018120503

Rocket: Ariane 5 ECA; Payload: GSAT-11, GEO-KOMPSAT-2A; Date: 4 December 2018, 2037 UTC; Launch site: Kourou, French Guiana. In its final launch of 2018, Ariane 5 placed the satellites in geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018120400

RUAG Space has completed and passed a Manufacturing Readiness Review (MRR) for the Payload Fairing for United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Atlas V-500. This will be the first U.S.-made flight hardware by RUAG Space USA in Decatur, Alabama. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018120401

MDA was selected by Airbus to provide a conceptual design of a rover mobility system and sample acquisition system planned to explore Mars and acquire samples that will be returned to Earth. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018120402

Rocket: Soyuz-FG; Payload: Soyuz MS-11; Date: 3 December 2018, 1131 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft was accurately placed on the target orbit for another mission to the International Space Station. This was the thirteenth Soyuz family mission in 2018, and the first crewed Soyuz launch after the anomaly on 11 October.…

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: SSO-A: SmallSat Express (64 small satellites); Date: 3 December 2018, 1834 UTC; Launch site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, USA. A series of six deployments occurred approximately 13 to 43 minutes after lift-off, after which launch customer Spaceflight began to command its own deployment sequences. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018120301

Arianespace has been chosen by the Slovenian Centre of Excellence for Space Sciences and Technologies (SPACE-SI) to launch the NEMO-HD microsat on the Vega launch vehicle as part of the Small Spacecraft Mission Service (SSMS) Proof of Concept (POC) flight in 2019. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018120302

NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft has completed its 2 billion-kilometer journey to arrive at the asteroid Bennu. The spacecraft executed a manoeuvre that transitioned it from flying toward Bennu to operating around the asteroid. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018120303

Nine U.S. companies now are eligible to bid on NASA delivery services to the lunar surface through Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contracts. These companies will be able to bid on delivering science and technology payloads for NASA, including payload integration and operations, launching from Earth and landing on the surface of the Moon. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018120304

Rocket: Rokot/Briz-KM; Payload: three Rodnik satellites; Date: 29 November 2018, 0227 UTC; Launch site: Plesetsk, Russia. The Briz-KM upper stage together with three military satellites separated from the rocket’s second stage as scheduled at 0233 UTC. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018120200