Satellite News

Mercury Computer Systems, Inc. announced it has been awarded an US$8.6 million contract from an unnamed customer to provide a communications platform for a commercial ground-based satellite beamforming application.

China plans a three-satellite mission to observe solar phenomena, including solar flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), interplanetary clouds, shock waves, as well as their effects on Earth, such as magnetic storms and auroral activities.

BAE Systems and Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) are under contract to deliver the OBC695B processor to control a small RF subsystem that will fly as an experiment on the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft.

Rocket: Molniya-M/Blok-2BL [Molniya 8K78M 2BL]; Payload: Kosmos 2422; Date: 21 July 2006, 0420 UTC; Launch Site: Plesetsk, Russia. The military satellite is in stable contact with ground control, according to the Russian Space Forces.