PARIS — Six
Orbcomm two-way messaging satellites successfully were placed into orbit June
19 aboard a Russian Cosmos 3M rocket operating from Russia's Kapustin Yar
spaceport, according to the launch services provider, Cosmos Space Systems AG
of Germany and Russia.
Ft. Lee,
N.J.-based Orbcomm Inc. will be integrating the satellites into its existing
in-orbit fleet of 29 satellites in the coming weeks. In addition to buttressing
Orbcomm's existing machine-to-machine communications service, the new
spacecraft will permit the start of a new service for the U.S. Coast Guard
called Automatic Identification System (AIS). The AIS payload delivers
information on vessels in or near U.S. coastal waters that are equipped with
AIS terminals.
The six satellites
were built by a U.S.-Russian-German team including Orbital Sciences Corp. of
Dulles, Va., which provided the satellites' electronics payload; Polyot of
Omsk, Russia, which built the satellites' platform; and OHB System of Bremen,
Germany, which integrated the platforms and payloads and performed pre-launch
testing.
Polyot also
arranged for the Cosmos
3M launch services as part of its Cosmos Space Systems joint venture with
OHB System.
advertisement
