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International Launch Services (ILS) now has a contract today with Inmarsat for the launch of an S-band satellite to provide mobile broadcast and two-way telecommunications services throughout Europe.M/b> The contract follows last week’s successful launch of the Inmarsat-4 F3 satellite on an ILS Proton Breeze M vehicle.
Read MoreAn Alliant Techsystems suborbital rocket carrying two NASA hypersonic experiments was destroyed shortly after liftoff from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia Friday, August 22nd. No injuries or property damage were immediately reported. The exact launch time was 5:10 a.m. EDT. The anomaly that caused the failure occurred approximately 27 seconds into flight and is not known.
Read MoreNASA destroyed an unmanned experimental rocket carrying a pair of research satellites Friday when it veered off course shortly after an early morning liftoff. At 5:10 a.m. Friday, August 22, the rocket was destroyed by range safety officials after liftoff from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. No injuries or property damage have been reported.
Read MoreComing to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility, Wallops Island, Virginia is a first — the Tactical Satellite-3 mission is scheduled to demonstrate rapid data collection and transmission to the combatant commander in the theater of interest. During this upcoming flight a new capability will be demonstrated and tested; that of employing a hyperspectral imager with a space-based, onboard processor to obtain and send images within minutes to the warfighter on the ground.
Read MoreSpaceDev, Inc. (OTCBB: SPDV) has signed a multi-year contract with Scaled Composites to assist that firm in the development of a production rocket motor for the first commercial space vehicle designed for space tourism called SpaceShipTwo. The vehicle is being designed by Scaled for Virgin Galactic and is part of a complete space system that also includes the recently unveiled WhiteKnightTwo carrier aircraft.
Read MoreWith all of the necessary components for the launch of the RapidEye satellite constellation currently waiting in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, all appears to be set for the August launch for the German company RapidEye AG. All five earth observation satellites will be sent into orbit on a DNEPR-1 launch vehicle, released into a shared orbit at 630 km and will circle the globe 15 times daily.
Read MoreGeoEye, Inc. (NASDAQ: GEOY) has announced the Air Force 30th Space Wing at Vandenberg Air Force Base has now approved the September 4th launch date for GeoEye-1 clearing the way to complete final preparations for launch. The previously reported retest of a booster range safety antenna was successfully completed on Aug. 14th.
Read MoreA successful launch has placed the Superbird-7 and AMC-21 telecommunications satellites into accurate geostationary transfer orbits. This was the 9th mission performed by Ariane 5s in a 12-month period, during which the workhorse vehicles carried 16 civilian and military telecommunications satellites along with the first Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) for the International Space Station. The combined total payload weight equals 75,430 kg. Thursday's flight also marked the Ariane 5's 27th consecutive successful launch, and was the fifth of seven missions planned by Arianespace in 2008.
Read MoreBall Aerospace & Technologies Corp.’s Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) Protoflight Model (PFM) that will fly aboard the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) has entered final integration and acceptance testing. The Company expects to complete integration and testing in August and deliver the OMPS PFM for spacecraft integration no later than September 30th.
Read MoreThe launch date for the Inmarsat-4 F3 communications satellite has now been reset by International Launch Services (ILS) to August 19th from launch pad 39 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome (August 18th GMT) at 04:43, local time. Set to lift off aboard a Proton M/Breeze M launch vehicle, this satellite is based on the Eurostar 3000GM bus.
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