Satellite News

The launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on its STS-115 mission to the International Space Station is being postponed because of Tropical Storm Ernesto. A new launch date has not been set.

Students world-wide are being asked to come up with ideas for a space mission to be launched in 2010. Proposals are now being sought for YES3, the third project in ESA’s Young Engineer’s Satellite Programme, the project that gives students the chance to design and build space hardware.

Nearly six months after it entered orbit, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has concluded its aerobraking phase. The spacecraft had been dipping in and out of the red planet’s atmosphere to adjust its orbit.

The crash of a Dnepr launch vehicle shortly after takeoff from Baikonur cosmodrome at the end of July was caused by a failure in the operation of a hydraulic device, said Nikolai Anfimov, head of the failure investigation commission and general director of TsNIIMash.

The Kennedy Space Center returned to normal operations today with the passage of Tropical Storm Ernesto late Wednesday.

FRANCE 24, the new French international news channel owned by France Televisions and TF1, has retained capacity on three Eutelsat satellites (Hotbird 7A, Atlantic Bird 2 and Eurobird 1) for broadcasting when it starts broadcasting in December this year.

Loral Skynet has teamed with Global Crossing , a provider of terrestrial-based telecommunications services, to extend the reach of the British Government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) network to the world’s most remote island community, Tristan da Cunha. Services to Tristan are being rolled out under Global Crossing’s contract to manage the FCO’s global communications infrastructure.

Intelsat announced that it has secured rights, through The Brazilian National Telecommunications Agency (ANATEL), to begin offering a wide range of its GlobalConnex Managed Solutions to businesses and government agencies throughout Brazil.