July 2020

HawkEye 360 Inc. announced it has successfully completed environmental testing of its second cluster of three satellites. This significant milestone for HawkEye Cluster 2 clears the way to prepare for launch, which is scheduled for late 2020. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020071602

Rocket: Minotaur IV; Payload: NROL-129 (four classified spacecraft); Date: 15 July 2020, 1346 UTC; Launch site: Wallops Flight Facility. The U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) confirmed the launch was a success. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020071500

Spaceflight Inc. announced that it will be flying its next generation orbital transfer vehicle, Sherpa-FX, on a fully dedicated rideshare mission with SpaceX. The mission, called SXRS-3 by Spaceflight, is scheduled to launch on a Falcon 9 no earlier than December 2020. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020071501

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been assembled into its final form and completed a Comprehensive Systems Test or CST. This was the first full systems evaluation that has ever been run on the assembled observatory, and one of the final first-time activities the team will perform. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020071502

The service module for the first satellite to be built as part of ESA’s Eurostar Neo satellite development programme has left the UK for Toulouse in France. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020071503

Teledyne e2v has been selected through the grouped proposal of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) industrial policy committee to place six Copernicus Sentinel satellite missions to provide the image sensor technology. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020071504

One week following the successful launch of the Ofek 16 satellite into space, the engineering teams of the Space Administration in the Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D), of the Israel Ministry of Defense (IMoD), and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), have operated the satellite’s observation camera for the first time. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020071505

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) has postponed the launch of the H-IIA Launch Vehicle No.42 (H-IIA F42), which carries aboard the United Arab Emirates’ Mars Mission’s (EMM) HOPE spacecraft. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020071400

Russia’s State Space Corporation Roskosmos will develop an Angara-A5V new heavy rocket no later than 2025, Roskosmos said. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020071401

The capsule of ‘Hayabusa2’ containing asteroid samples will land in South Australia on 6 December 2020, JAXA and the Australian Space Agency said. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020071402