February 2018

The Independent Enquiry Commission formed after the Ariane 5 launcher’s trajectory deviation during its 25 January 2018 mission issued its conclusions on Thursday, 22 February. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018022500

SpaceX postponed an attempt to launch a Falcon 9 rocket and the Spanish Hispasat 30W-6 (aka Hispasat 1F) communications satellite to perform tests on the rocket’s nose cone. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018022501

A bad weather forecast has prompted Japanese space officials to delay the launch of an H-2A rocket with a high-resolution government-owned reconnaissance satellite by at least 48 hours until 27 February (UTC). http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018022502

Avio and Europropulsion have signed in Paris a supply contract for the coming 4 years for the final Ariane 5 production lot. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018022503

Mission managers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, this week lowered the orbit of the nearly 12-year-old CloudSat satellite following the loss of one of its reaction wheels, which control its orientation in orbit. While CloudSat’s science mission will continue, it will no longer fly as part of the Afternoon Constellation, or A-Train…

JAXA, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc. and Sony Corporation made a co-operative research agreement with respect to conducting the on-orbit demonstrations of laser communications system. This research to be executed in the Kibo module on the International Space Station (ISS) aims at establishing a communications system of mass data between spacecraft and that which connects…

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: PAZ, Microsat-2a, Microsat-2b; Date: 22 February 2018, 1417 UTC; Launch site: Vandenberg Air Force Base, USA. Ten minutes after launch, the PAZ satellite separated from the launcher and will soon be positioned at its 514 km orbit. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018022200

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter arrived at Mars in October 2016 in an initial, highly elliptical four-day orbit of about 98,000 x 200 km. Since March 2017, ESA had been conducting an aerobraking campaign, slowing the craft and lowering its orbit (to sometimes just 103 km altitude). At 1720 UTC on 20 February, ExoMars fired…

SpaceX called off an attempted launch of its Falcon 9 rocket due to strong high-altitude winds. The Falcon 9 launcher was scheduled to lift off at 1417 UTC from Vandenberg Air Force Base, USA. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018022100

Aerojet Rocketdyne and NASA have powered up the RS-25 main engine for the agency’s heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) to its highest thrust levels yet. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2018022101