- Sea Launch is to launch PanAmSat’s Space Systems/Loral-built Galaxy 16 and Orbital Sciences-built Galaxy 18 by Zenit 3SL in 2006 and 2007. PanAmSat has also awarded the Boeing-led venture its first Land Launch contract for a Zenit 3SLB flight from Baikonur in 2007, carrying the Orbital-built PanAmSat 11.
- Surrey Satellite Technology’s 600kg (1,320lb) GTSB-V2/A testbed satellite for the Galileo navigation system has been placed in the large space simulator at the European Space Agency’s European Research and Technology Centre in the Netherlands for vacuum testing.
- A call for improvements for NASA’s Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), expected in September following completion of NASA’s internal return-to-the-Moon architecture study, will identify CEV requirement changes including crew transport to the International Space Station. Downselect to one developer is expected in late March 2006.
- NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral on 10 August on a mission to take extreme close-up images of the Martian surface, look for minerals and subsurface water, trace dust and monitor the atmospheric distribution of water and the weather.
- French space agency CNES and defence procurement agency DGA are working on a €170 million ($206 million) electronic-intelligence demonstration programme using four EADS Astrium Myriade micro-satellites to be launched in 2009. The operational system comes on line in 2013.
Source: Flight International
