spacetoday.net: Dnepr launches German radar satellite

Posted: Tue, Jun 22, 2010, 7:14 AM ET (1114 GMT)
Dnepr launch of TanDEM-X (DLR)

For the second time in less than a week a Dnepr rocket placed a European satellite into orbit on Monday. The Dnepr rocket, a converted SS-18 ICBM, lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and placed the 1.3-tonne TanDEM-X satellite into a 514-kilometer Sun-synchronous orbit. The spacecraft, operated by a public-private partnership between the German space agency DLR and Astrium, is a twin of TerraSAR-X, a radar imaging satellite launched in 2007. The two satellites will operate in parallel to generate a 3-D elevation model of the Earth. Last week another Dnepr rocket launched the Prisma and Picard satellites for Sweden and France from an ICBM base at Yasny, Russia.