Peru's first national satellite, PerúSAT-1, has returned its maiden image of the country. It features the vast Cuajone copper mine in the Andes, where some 170,000 tonnes of metal are taken from the ground each year. Built by Europe's Airbus group and launched on 16 September, PerúSAT-1 can see features as small as 70cm. Read more
Launch of Vega Rocket with Peru Sat-1 and SkySat 4, 5, 6, 7
Spoiler
Arianespace launched their 7th Vega rocket tonight, 01:43 UTC, September 16th 2016 from Kourou in French Guiana. The rocket carried the Peru Sat-1 satellite as well as SkySat 4, 5, 6 and 7 micro-satellites.
Arianespace launched a Vega rocket on a complex mission early this morning that demonstrated the flexibility of its upper stage and multisatellite carrier. In its first six flights, Vega delivered a wide range of satellites into very different orbits, demonstrating its flexibility. Liftoff of the seventh mission from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana came at 01:43 GMT on 16 September (03:43 CEST; 22:43 local time on 15 September). Read more
SkySat-4, 5, 6 and-7 are the first four of these micro-satellites to be launched by Arianespace for Terra Bella, a new customer and a commercial operator of Earth observation satellites. Terra Bella is a Google company using data from space to solve problems on Earth. SkySat- 4,5, 6, and 7 will augment Terra Bella's existing 3 on-orbit satellites-growing the constellation and enabling Terra Bella to help enterprise customers solve the challenges affecting their business and generate insights into important global economic, environmental, and humanitarian challenges. The four satellites, SkySats-4 to 7, will be injected into a Sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 500 km. They will be used to provide very-high-resolution (sub meters) maps of the entire Earth. Read more (PDF)
PerúSAT-1 is a very-high-resolution Earth observation satellite system built for the government and Space Agency of Peru. This satellite is the first of its kind to be operated by Peru and is scheduled for launch in September 2016. Read more
VEGA FLIGHT VV07 with PerúSAT-1 and SkySats-4 to -7
For its seventh launch of the year, and seventh Vega mission since the light launcher began operations at the Guiana Space Center French Guiana, in 2012, Arianespace will orbit the PerúSAT-1 satel-lite as part of a turnkey contract with Airbus Defence and Space for the Peruvian space agency CONIDA, and the SkySats-4 to 7 satellites for the American operator Terra Bella, a Google company. Read more