News & Events

Arianespace’s next Ariane 5 flight has been authorised for lift-off on 4 December following a launch readiness review conducted at the Spaceport in French Guiana. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018120201

SpaceX is now targeting launch of the Spaceflight SSO-A SmallSat Express mission to low Earth orbit on Monday, 3 December from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018120202

NASA has awarded a contract to Harris Corporation of Rochester, New York, for the Optical Telescope Assembly (OTA) for the agency’s Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) mission. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018120203

China’s first global mobile satellite communication and Internet space project via low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites has been launched in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018120204

Rocket: PSLV-C43 (‘Core Alone’); Payload: HysIS, 30 secondary payloads; Date: 29 November 2018, 0427 UTC; Launch site: Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota, India. During the 112-minute-long mission,the rocket first delivered HysIS into a polar sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 630 km 17 minutes and 27 seconds after the launch. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018112900

Telesat said that an independent technical study, led by members of the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has concluded that the design of Telesat’s global LEO constellation is far more efficient compared to those of OneWeb and SpaceX. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018112901

ABB Measurement & Analytics Business Unit in Québec City, Canada has signed a contract with Montréal-based company GHGSat to manufacture and test the optical sensor onboard the company’s third microsatellite (GHGSat-C2) aimed at monitoring greenhouse gases (GHG). http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018112902

Boeing has been awarded US$383 million from the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center for the Protected Tactical Enterprise Service (PTES) tactical satellite communications system. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018112903

SpaceX has delayed the launch of Spaceflight’s Smallsat Express (aka SSO-A) from Vandenberg Air Force Base until early December 2018, owing to high-altitude winds. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018112800

South Korea has launched a single-stage rocket to test a locally made engine as part of efforts to place a satellite into orbit. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018112801