April 2019

A GLONASS-M navigation satellite, designed and built by ISS-Reshetnev Company, has arrived at the Plesetsk cosmodrome. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041600

The redeployment of the Sea Launch space launch venture from the U.S. State of California to Russia’s Far East may be discussed soon, a Russian space industry source was quoted as saying by Sputnik news agency. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041601

Kepler Communications, a Canadian satellite telecommunications provider, and Magellan Aerospace Corporation have signed a Letter of Intention to fly a Smart Radiator Device (SRD) on Kepler’s third satellite, scheduled for launch later this year. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041602

Microspace missions developed and launched by Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) have achieved 100 cumulative years of on-orbit operations. Over two decades, SFL has developed 25 nano- and microsatellites that have been launched for space science, Earth observation, communication, radio frequency geolocation, environmental monitoring, technology demonstration, and ship detection. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041603

Virgin Orbit announced that the Pacific island of Guam will become an additional launch site for the company’s LauncherOne service. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041500

Russia’s State Space Corporation Roskosmos and S7 Group are planning to develop the Soyuz-5 Light reusable launch vehicle based on the Soyuz-5 rocket, Roskosmos General Director Dmitry Rogozin was quoted as saying. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041501

A video released by ExoAnalytics indicates that Intelsat 29e suffered a rather violent anomaly that created several medium-sized pieces of debris. Meanwhile, the satellite (or what’s left of it) is accelerating its eastward drift. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041400

Rocket: Falcon Heavy; Payload: Arabsat 6A; Date: 11 April 2019, 2235 UTC; Launch site: Kennedy Space Center, USA. The satellite was deployed approximately 34 minutes after lift-off. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041401

NASA has selected SpaceX in Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for the agency’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission, the first-ever mission to demonstrate the capability to deflect an asteroid by colliding a spacecraft with it at high speed – a technique known as a kinetic impactor. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041402

Harris Corporation said it will celebrate a major space satellite antenna milestone – the production of its 100th unfurlable mesh reflector. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041403