HEAVY-LIFTING ARIANE 5 DELIVERS FOR THREE CUSTOMERS - An Ariane 5 rocket fired its clean-burning hydrogen-fueled main engine, passed an automated check of dozens of health parameters, and lit two tube-shaped solid rocket boosters to blast away from its launch pad in the Amazon jungle Thursday with two communications satellites to serve the Middle East, North Africa and India. Filled with cryogenic propellant, the 1.7-million-pound launcher lifted off at 2030 GMT (4:30 p.m. EDT) from the ELA-3 launch pad at the Guiana Space Center, a sprawling European-run facility on the northern coast of South America near the town of Kourou, French Guiana. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 30)
THE GO-AHEAD IS GIVEN FOR ARIANESPACE'S HEAVY-LIFT ARIANE 5 MISSION TO ORBIT EUTELSAT 25B/ES'HAIL 1 - Arianespace's fourth Ariane 5 mission of 2013 has been approved for liftoff on Thursday with two communications satellites to provide relay coverage over the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia, along with the Indian land mass. The authorization followed today's successful launch readiness review conducted at the Spaceport in French Guiana. This procedure - held prior to all Arianespace missions - validated the "go" status of the launcher, its dual payload of the EUTELSAT 25B/Es'hail 1 and GSAT-7 satellites, the Spaceport's infrastructure and the system of downrange tracking stations. More (Source: SpaceRef.com - Aug 29)
ULA DELTA IV-H LAUNCHES WITH NROL-65 - A United Launch Alliance Delta IV conducted morning launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Wednesday, carrying a classified payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office. Liftoff of the NROL-65 mission, which is expected to deploy the last KH-11 reconnaissance satellite, occurred at 11:03 local time (16:03 UTC). More (Source: NASASpaceflight.com - Aug 28)
ULA DELTA IV-H SET TO LAUNCH NROL-65 - A United Launch Alliance Delta IV is scheduled to make a morning launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Wednesday, carrying a classified payload for the US National Reconnaissance Office. Liftoff of the NROL-65 mission, which is expected to deploy the last KH-11 reconnaissance satellite, is scheduled for 11:03 local time (16:03 UTC). NRO Launch 65, or NROL-65, is the name given to the launch by the National Reconnaissance Office, who will operate the payload. More (Source: NASAspaceflight.com - Aug 28)
INDIA'S 1ST MILITARY SATELLITE TO BE LAUNCHED THIS WEEK - The Indian Space Research Organization will launch its first dedicated military satellite — designated GSat-7 — on Friday. It will be launched on the Ariane VA215 between 2 and 2.50am from the European spaceport of Kourou in the French Guyana. The 2.5 tonne satellite will be mainly used by the Indian Navy, providing the much-needed boost to the communication network among warships. More (Source: Times of India - Aug 28)
JAPAN CANCELS 1ST LAUNCH OF NEXT-GENERATION EPSILON ROCKET - The first launch of Japan's newest rocket, the next-generation Epsilon booster, hit a major last-minute snag Tuesday (Aug. 27), forcing the country's space agency to abort the spaceflight 19 seconds before liftoff. The glitch occurred extremely late in the countdown for the Epsilon rocket, which was slated to blast off from a seaside pad at the Uchinoura Space Center in southern Japan. The rocket was set to launch Tuesday at 12:45 a.m. EDT (0445 GMT), which was 1:45 p.m. Japan Standard Time at the launch site. More (Source: Space.com - Aug 28)
RUSSIAN COSMONAUTS COMPLETE REPAIR MISSION ON SPACE STATION - A pair of spacewalking cosmonauts installed a new telescope mount on the International Space Station on Thursday despite a flaw in the device. Russians Fyodor Yurchikhin and Aleksandr Misurkin -- making their second spacewalk in under a week -- initially were told to give up trying to plug in the 6-foot platform for a yet-to-be-launched telescope. But after more than an hour of discussion at Russian Mission Control outside Moscow, the decision was reversed and the cosmonauts installed it. More (Source: Fox News - Aug 24)
S. KOREA SET TO LAUNCH MULTIPURPOSE SATELLITE ARIRANG - South Korea was set to launch a multipurpose satellite later Thursday, greatly enhancing its ability to observe and monitor any changes on the Earth's surface. The Arirang 5 satellite is set to lift off at 8:39 p.m. (11:39 p.m. KST) from a space launch site here in Yasny, 1,800 kilometers southeast of Moscow. The 1,315-kilogram satellite will be South Korea's fourth multipurpose satellite, but its first with a synthetic aperture radar. More (Source: GlobalPost - Aug 22)
WILL 'SPACE JUNK' PROBLEM INTENSIFY? - The United States is planning to shut down a key component of its space surveillance network that tracks satellites and "space junk" orbiting the Earth. As a result, satellite launches and flights to the International Space Station (ISS) may involve a higher degree of risk. The Air Force Space Surveillance System known as Space Fence consists of three two-mile-long transmitter antennae and six receivers in the south of the country. More (Source: Space Daily - Aug 22)
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