PARIS — SixOrbcomm two-way messaging satellites successfully were placed into orbit June19 aboard a Russian Cosmos 3M rocket operating from Russia's Kapustin Yarspaceport, according to the launch services provider, Cosmos Space Systems AGof Germany and Russia.
Ft. Lee,N.J.-based Orbcomm Inc. will be integrating the satellites into its existingin-orbit fleet of 29 satellites in the coming weeks. In addition to buttressingOrbcomm's existing machine-to-machine communications service, the newspacecraft will permit the start of a new service for the U.S. Coast Guardcalled Automatic Identification System (AIS). The AIS payload deliversinformation on vessels in or near U.S. coastal waters that are equipped withAIS terminals.
The six satelliteswere built by a U.S.-Russian-German team including Orbital Sciences Corp. ofDulles, Va., which provided the satellites' electronics payload; Polyot ofOmsk, Russia, which built the satellites' platform; and OHB System of Bremen,Germany, which integrated the platforms and payloads and performed pre-launchtesting.
Polyot alsoarranged for the Cosmos3M launch services as part of its Cosmos Space Systems joint venture withOHB System.
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