On January 15, 2016 at 16:57 UTC (on January 16 at 00:57 Beijing time) the Chang Zheng-3B (Long March-3B) rocket-carrier was launched from Xichang Cosmodrome, Sichuan province, southwestern China. The rocket orbited the “Belintersat-1” communications satellite. Belintersat finalized the contract for construction of the satellite based on the China Academy of Space Technology’s DFH-4 spacecraft bus in 2012. Thales Alenia Space of France supplied Belintersat 1’s communications payload. Owned by the government of Belarus, the “Belintersat-1” satellite will broadcast television and radio programming, support corporate networking, and provide broadband Internet connectivity. Operational lifetime is expected to be 15 years.

On January 15, 2016 American astronaut Timothy Kopra and British astronaut Timothy Peake performed the spacewalk. The astronauts began the spacewalk at 12:48 UTC. It was to be a six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk, the first so far this year. Flight controllers ordered two astronauts to terminate a spacewalk outside the International Space Station after one of them reported a small amount of water leaking into his space helmet. The EVA lasted 4 hours and 43 minutes.