Satellite News

SpaceDev, Inc. announced that Chairman and Chief Technology Officer, James W. Benson, has stepped down from his roles at the company in order to launch a new independent venture, Benson Space Company, focused on the marketing of commercial space tourism.

Globecomm Systems Inc. has been awarded a US$1.1 million contract from the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) for the design and build of new transportable multi-band earth terminals.

Lockheed Martin Corporation announced that its Space Systems company is consolidating all its human space flight activities into one organisation.

China has tried to temporarily blind U.S. spy satellites with ground based high-power lasers, Defense News reports citing unnamed sources.

The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM), designed and built by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, has opened its protective cover. It is one of six science instruments aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) aboard the Hubble Space Telescope has shut down again, reports New Scientist.

Seven more rocket launches are planned at Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan by the end of 2006, according to Interfax news agency.