Boeing-led Sea Launch has won its first contract for a Zenit booster flight from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The Space Systems/Loral-built Asiasat 5 communication satellite will be orbited in 2008 by Land Launch, which is similar to the Zenit 3SL booster flown by Sea Launch from a floating platform in the Pacific. This follows a contract to launch another Loral-built spacecraft, the EchoStar 11 direct-broadcast satellite, aboard a 3SL in 2007.
Source: Flight International
China’s AVIC has secured a contract from the China Manned Space Agency to develop a winged, reusable spacecraft called Haolong.
The UK Space Command’s first owned earth observation microsatellite has been launched, providing the inaugural element of a planned space-based intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) constellation.
Orbital launch pioneer SpaceX is being contracted by the American space agency NASA to develop a so-called “US Deorbit Vehicle” that can safely return the International Space Station to Earth via controlled re-entry.
