Asiasat 5 has arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome accompanied by a team from Space Systems Loral. The satellite, built by SSL is based on their well known Star 1300 bus, and will be launched on a Proton Breeze M rocket mid August.  The Proton launch vehicle, utilizing a 4-burn Breeze M will lift off from Pad 39 sometime mid August .  The first three stages of the Proton will use a standard ascent profile to place the Orbital Unit (Breeze M upper stage and AsiaSat 5) into a sub-orbital trajectory.  …

Arianespace will launch two new satellites into orbit on the 21st of August, the launcher will carry JCSAT-12 for Japan’s Sky Perfect JSAT and Optus D3 destined to be co located with Optus C1 at 156 East.

The launch will be made using the Ariane 5 launcher from French Guinea with a one hourlaunch window starting at 22:09GMT, (08:09 AEST). The launch will be viewable on the web at http://www.videocorner.tv/.
The Optus D3 satellite will allow a quite significant capacity increase for customers locatedin Australia and New Zealand with Pay TV provider Foxtel …

TerreStar, a US company, is building the world’s first all IP enabled next generation mobile communications network over an integrated satellite/terrestrial network.
TerreStar’s system will occupy two 10MHz segments of spectrum in the 2GHz range throughout North America and Canada.
Space Systems Loral has built the TerreStar-1, the world’s largest commercial satellite, based on their SSL1300 platform, which has been delivered to French Guiana, where it will be launched on June 24 aboard a dedicated Ariane 5 launcher. The satellite will utilize its 18 metre antenna to generate over 500 spot beams …

HOT BIRD 10

When you need to fix a satellite there is only one way to do it. Launch another one!
Fancy watching the behind the scenes of a satellite launch? From payload integration to training with the French Foreign Legion who guard the launch site, National Geographic’s World’s Toughest Fixes has it all promises to be a must see for the sat enthusiast. 
The show, due to air from the 4th June, takes a behind the scenes look at the launch of the $250m HOT BIRD 10 satellite on an Ariane 5 rocket. …