Two U.S.-German satellites launched more than 15 years ago to measure Earth’s changing gravity field will stop collecting data in November, a few months before a pair of replacement craft will launch to resume gravity measurements, NASA officials said.
Iridium has secured a launch for five more of its next-generation communications craft in a rideshare arrangement with two U.S.-German research satellites aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket by early 2018.
Stymied by Russian government dithering that has indefinitely grounded a launch on a modified Soviet-era missile, Iridium officials say that SpaceX agreed to move up to July the first of seven Falcon 9 launches from California with the company’s next-generation mobile communications satellites.
The first launch for Iridium’s next-generation mobile communications fleet has been pushed back four months — from December until April — to resolve a technical problem inside the spacecraft’s Ka-band communications payload.
A stockpiled Soviet-era ballistic missile shot out of an underground silo on a remote Russian military base Wednesday and powered into orbit with a South Korean Earth observation satellite.
Flights of the Russian-Ukrainian Dnepr rocket are expected to continue this year despite proclamations the satellite launcher program is suspended, officials said this week.
A decommissioned Soviet-era ballistic missile — adapted for space launches instead of nuclear war — rocketed out of an underground silo and sent five Japanese Earth observing satellites into orbit.