The second fully commercial launch by German-Russian joint venture Eurorockot Launch Services carried two spare Iridium mobile communications satellites into a 650km (400 miles), 86.6°-inclination low Earth orbit on 20 June.
A Boeing Delta II launch in February carried five spacecraft for Iridium Satellite, which now has 14 in-orbit spares to complement its 66 operational Lockheed Martin-built satellites, ensuring the provision of global voice and data communications until at least 2010. Boeing operates the spacecraft for Iridium Satellite, which bought the assets of the bankrupt Motorola-led Iridium venture last year.
Eurockot is a joint venture between Astrium and Khrunichev providing launch services from Plesetsk in Russia using the Rockot booster, a converted SS-19 ballistic missile with a Breeze-KM upper stage. The first fully commercial launch put two US-German Grace satellites into orbit in March. A third is scheduled for early next year, carrying microsatellites from Canada and the Czech Republic.
A Lockheed Martin Titan II booster launched the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NOAA-M earth observation satellite into sun-synchronous polar orbit from Vandenberg AFB, California, on 24 June. It was the 11th consecutive successful launch by the converted ballistic missile. Lockheed Martin built the NOAA-M, the latest in the Advanced TIROS-N satellite series.
International Launch Services' Proton K/DM launch of the Space Systems/Loral-built Echostar VIII communications satellite was scrubbed on 22 June and delayed until at least 18 July due to a spacecraft command receiver anomaly.
Source: Flight International
