Satellite News

The Chinese government has always supported international action to reduce space junk, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman was quoted as saying by Xinhua. Always? Not in January 2007, that is.

“German Satellite Almost Crashed into Beijing” is the sensationalist headline for a not much less sensationalist article published by German news magazine Der Spiegel. Almost? Anything that was left of the x-ray satellite Rosat after it re-entered Earth’s atmosphere last October plunged into the Bay of Bengal, which actually is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean and nowhere near Beijing.Other Posts:Sirius Satellite Radio results Q2 2006Mars Lander lands in FloridaBall Aerospace to ship WISE spacecraftPatent Issued To MSV For Satellite-Terrestrial Communications SystemsInternational Communications Group Picks Spec Ops Inc. As DistributorO3b Networks completes satellite CDR with Thales Alenia SpaceWhat *if* there were less than 24 GPS satellites?ECAPS, Moog and ATK to bring green propulsion to the U.S.

A yet-to-be-published report claims that the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B “mini shuttle” was spying on China’s Tiangong-1 space lab. According to many experts, this seems to be rather far-fetched.
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A group of hackers at the Chaos Computer Club’s Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin recently proposed an initiative called the Hackerspace Global Grid (HGG), which aims to develop a satellite system for “uncensorable Internet in space.” Don’t hold your breath.Other Posts:Gilat Satellite Networks Ltd. results Q1 2008Russia gives up GEO-IK-2Ferrari To Offer XM Radio And XM NavTrafficBoeing and Ball Aerospace announced SBSS readied for launchShin Satellite Completes Transfer Of Customers To Thaicom 5Taking it to the “Extreme”International Datacasting Names ChairmanKSC reopens after the passage of Ernesto

Roskosmos deputy head Vitaly Davydov has confused some western media outlets with his announcement that the International Space Station (ISS) will be plunged into the ocean at the end of its life cycle.
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Wikileaks has finally reached the satellite industry, creating hundreds of sensationalist reports that claim the “United States and Germany are jointly developing secret spy satellites under the guise of a commercial programme.” While this is outright nonsense, the leaked U.S. diplomatic cables are interesting for other reasons.
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