* Lockheed Martin is to build the BSAT-3a Ku-band direct-broadcast satellite for Japan's Broadcasting Satellite System, for launch in the second quarter of 2007 to 110° east in geostationary orbit.
* The 441st and final UK Skylark 7 sounding rocket was launched from Swedish Space Corporation's Esrange on a suborbital microgravity research mission on 2 May. The first Skylark launch was in 1957 from Woomera, Australia.
* ESA's Mars Express orbiter's radar is to be deployed by the end of this week, 12 months late because of concerns that deploying its two 20m (65ft)-long dipole booms and 7m monopole boom might destabilise the spacecraft. The radar will look for subsurface water ice
Source: Flight International
