NASA'S NEWEST SOLAR SATELLITE ARRIVES AT VANDENBERG AFB FOR LAUNCH - NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) satellite arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Tuesday, April 16, to begin its final preparations for launch currently scheduled no earlier than May 28. IRIS will improve our understanding of how heat and energy move through the deepest levels of the sun's atmosphere, thereby increasing our ability to forecast space weather.    More
(Source: Wall Street Journal - Apr 19)

EUTELSAT 3D SATELLITE ARRIVES AT THE BAIKONOUR COSMODROME. - The EUTELSAT 3D satellite of Eutelsat Communications (Euronext Paris: ETL) arrived on April 13 at the Baikonour Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and is now undergoing final preparations for launch by a Proton Breeze M rocket supplied by ILS. Lift-off is planned on May 14 from 16.02 GMT (18.02 CET) with spacecraft separation scheduled to occur after a nine hour 13 minute flight.    More
(Source: Wall Street Journal - Apr 18)

ANTARES ROCKET'S FIRST LAUNCH ABORTED WHEN SUPPLY LINE DROPS OFF EARLY - Orbital Sciences Corp. called off the maiden launch of its Antares rocket on Wednesday when an umbilical line dropped off prematurely from the launch vehicle's second stage. The launch abort came at about 4:48 p.m. ET, just minutes before the Antares was due to lift off from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Wallops Island, Va. The most likely scenario would see the 5 p.m. ET test launch rescheduled for Friday or later.    More
(Source: NBC News - Apr 17)

GALILEO SATELLITE ACHIEVES HIGH EARTH ORBIT POSITIONING WITH GPS - When the European Space Agency launched its Galileo In-Orbit Validation Element-A (GIOVE-A) satellite in 2005, its main mission was to transmit Galileo test signals that secured the system’s frequencies, evaluate hardware under space environmental conditions, and so forth. ESA formally decommissioned the spacecraft in the middle of 2012 after the agency had finished checking out the first Galileo in-orbit validation (IOV) satellites. The agency then moved GIOVE-A into a “graveyard orbit” about 100 kilometers above Galileo’s 23,222-kilometer altitude...   More
(Source: Inside GNSS - Apr 17)

LAUNCH! ANIK G1 SATELLITE AIMS TO EASE COMMUNICATIONS OVERCROWDING - A new communications satellite aims to ease the strain of overcrowded communications networks in Latin America, while adding capacity to direct-to-home services in Canada and government and military users across the Americas. Anik G1 lifted off at 2:36 p.m. EDT (6:36 p.m. UTC) today, April 15, from Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The satellite, carried by a Proton-M rocket, is still undergoing orbital maneuvers as of this writing; the upper Breeze-M stage will fire five times to put Anik G1 in the proper orbit.    More
(Source: Universe Today - Apr 16)

ECUADOR TO LAUNCH FIRST DOMESTICALLY PRODUCED SATELLITE - Ecuador will send its first domestically produced satellite into orbit in late April from a launch centre in China, said the Andean nation's President Rafael Correa. "At the end of the month, the first Ecuadorian satellite will be launched, not a satellite bought from a foreign country (but) a satellite made in Ecuador," Correa said in his weekly radio address Saturday. He noted that the initiative was carried out by the Ecuadorian Civil Space Agency, which is headed by the country's first astronaut, Ronnie Nader.    More
(Source: Newstrack India - Apr 16)

VNREDSAT-1 SATELLITE LAUNCH DELAYED - The launch of the Vietnam Natural Resources, Environment and Disaster Monitoring Small Satellite (VNREDSat-1) will be delayed until late April. Dr. Bui TrongTuyen, Vice Director of the Space Technology Institute under the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, made the announcement on April 11. The satellite was scheduled to go into orbit between April 18-20.    More
(Source: VietNamNet Bridge - Apr 15)

EUROPE SETS JUNE 5 FOR LAUNCH OF SPACE FREIGHTER - The European Space Agency (ESA) on Thursday announced it would launch the fourth, and heaviest, in a series of hi-tech cargo vehicles to the International Space Station (ISS) on June 5. Named the Albert Einstein, the freighter will deliver 2.5 tonnes of dry cargo, ranging from food and scientific experiments to spare parts and clothing, as well as fuel, water and oxygen. The total mass of the vehicle, its contents and fuel, will come to 20.235 tonnes, "making this spacecraft the heaviest ever lofted into orbit by an Ariane rocket," ESA said. The Albert Einstein is scheduled to dock with the ISS on June 15, 10 days after launch, it added.    More
(Source: AFP - Apr 12)

A NEW ROCKET RISES: ORBITAL'S ANTARES PREPARED FOR ITS FIRST TEST LAUNCH - Orbital Sciences Corp. raised the first fully integrated Antares rocket on its Virginia launch pad on Saturday, setting the stage for its maiden flight to orbit later this month. A successful test launch would mark a giant leap toward using the Antares and Orbital's Cygnus cargo capsule to resupply the International Space Station. If the current schedule holds, Virginia-based Orbital would become the second commercial venture to send its spacecraft to the space station later this year, following in the footsteps of California-based SpaceX.    More
(Source: NBCNews.com - Apr 8)

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