Satellite News

Rocket: Rokot/Briz-KM; Payload: SMOS (Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity), Proba-2; Date: 2 November 2009, 0150 UTC. Both satellites were released into sun-synchronous orbits, at an altitude of some 760 km in the case of SMOS and 725 km in that of Proba-2.

The H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) Demonstration Flight successfully re-entered the atmosphere after the third de-orbit manoeuvre on 1 November (UTC).

Until 24 October NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit had gone more than six months without an episode of amnesia-like symptoms like those that appeared on four occasions earlier this year. Those symptoms have now reappeared.

The U.S. Air Force has not yet managed to fix the problem aboard the GPS IIR-20(M) satellite, which as a consequence has still not been set as healthy.

Integral Systems, Inc. announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Integral Systems Europe (ISE), has opened a new facility in the United Kingdom.