by Matt Wilson | Oct 26, 2016 | NASA, Satellites, Science, Seradata News
On 25 October, 2016, NASA announced it had placed an order with Orbital ATK for the Landsat 9 spacecraft. The order was placed utilising the Rapid Spacecraft Acquisition III contract, which allows NASA to order “proven spacecraft designs” from a number of...
by Matt Wilson | Oct 20, 2016 | exploration, NASA, Satellites, Science, Seradata News
At 0547 GMT on 19 October, the NASA probe, Juno, entered a “safe mode” 13 hours before it reached “perijove”, the low point of its orbit, around the planet Jupiter. Operators have reported that the spacecraft behaved as expected when entering...
by Matt Wilson | Oct 20, 2016 | ESA, exploration, NASA, Russia, Satellites, Science, Technology
The main Russian-launched Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) research element of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars mission was successfully injected into its planned orbit around Mars. But the “exciting” part of the mission, ESA’s Schiaparelli lander, crashed into...
by Matt Wilson | Oct 17, 2016 | exploration, NASA, Satellites, Science
On 14 October, NASA released a press release stating that a planned engine burn, referred to as a Period Reduction Manoeuvre (PRM), intended for 19 October would be postponed to allow for an investigation into a anomaly observed with the spacecraft’s fuel...
by Matt Wilson | Sep 30, 2016 | ESA, exploration, Satellites, Science, Technology
On 30 September 2016, at 1119 GMT the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), Darmstadt, announced that the Rosseta probe had completed its de-orbit manoeuvre to land/crash on to the surface of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, sending its last telemetry packet at...
by Matt Wilson | Sep 16, 2016 | China, Launches, Satellites, Science, space station
China has launched the Tiangong-2 “man tended” spacelab/mini-space station as a forerunner for its planned full-sized space station. The Long March 2F/T2 (CZ-2F/T2) launch of the mini-space station module took place at 14:04 GMT on 15 September 2016, from...
