Lockheed Martin’s launch services team hopes to lure up to four commercial customers per year to fly on United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 booster as a stream of U.S. government missions is forecast to dry up starting in 2017, according to Lockheed Martin’s rocket sales chief.
Steve Skladanek leads Lockheed Martin’s rocket sales force charged with pushing the Atlas 5 rocket, which has largely been on the sidelines of the commercial launch business in recent years, on the global satellite market.
A senior NASA official said Monday the agency could select two new robotic planetary science missions next year for launch in the early 2020s, and the five finalists favor Venus and asteroid research.
The 100th flight by United Launch Alliance took off Friday for deployment of a sophisticated geomobile communications satellite to bridge the digital divide in Mexico while extending the rocket company’s unparalleled record of success in launching $80 billion in space assets.
The Atlas 5 rocket emerges from the Vertical Integration Facility for rollout to Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral in preparation to launch Morelos 3 on Friday at 6:08 a.m. EDT.
A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral at 6:28 a.m. EDT (1028 GMT) today to deploy the Mexican Morelos 3 mobile communications satellite.
Relive all of the steps to stack the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral’s Vertical Integration Facility for the Morelos 3 satellite deployment mission.
Desperately needing a successful deployment to modernize the communications infrastructure for its citizens, Mexico is counting on the Atlas 5 rocket to safely launch a new satellite Friday.