by David Todd | Aug 21, 2019 | exploration, India, Satellites
Having slowly raised its orbit and then injected itself into a Trans Lunar Injection orbit on 13 August, India’s Chandrayaan 2 successfully achieved its make or break 29 minute burn to brake itself into lunar orbit. The burn was made at 0332 GMT on 20 August...
by David Todd | Aug 20, 2019 | Launches, Reliability Info, Satellites, Seradata News, Space Insurance
Having already had most of their likely premium receipts eaten up by the US$416 million loss of the Falcon Eye 1 in a Vega launch failure, it was reported that the Chinasat-18 (Zhongxing-18) satellite might have suffered a similar demise – albeit after being...
by David Todd | Aug 20, 2019 | Satellites, Seradata News, Technology
The small satellite manufacturer Blue Canyon Technologies (BCT) has been awarded the contract by Viasat to build a US Air Force test satellite to act as a “Link 16” communications relay terminal in low Earth Orbit. The test satellite will use a BCT XB1 12U...
by David Todd | Aug 19, 2019 | China, commercial launch services, Launches, Satellites, Seradata News
After suffering a few days of high winds which delayed the launch, a Rocket Lab Electron rocket launched four small satellites to low Earth orbit at 1212 GMT from the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand. The satellites were the BlackSky Global-4, BRO-1, Pearl White 1 and...
by David Todd | Aug 19, 2019 | China, Launches, Satellites
At 0411 GMT on 17 August, the first launch of the four soild stage Jielong 1 (Smart Dragon SD-1) took place from its mobile launch placed at the Jiuquan launch site in Inner Mongolia, China. The launch was operated by its constructor, the China Rocket Co Ltd, which is...
by David Todd | Aug 14, 2019 | ESA, exploration, Russia, Satellites, Science
The complicated multi-parachute landing system for the European Space Agency ExoMars landing mission in 2020 is now under scrutiny after it failed a second test. The test on 5 August of the large 35 m diameter subsonic main parachute was deemed a failure as it...
