Satellite News

Lockheed Martin said it has formed an alliance with ITT Corporation in the competition to build the U.S. Air Force’s next generation Global Positioning System Space Segment programme, known as GPS Block III.

MetOp-A is scheduled for launch by Starsem on 17 October aboard a Soyuz 2-1a/ST rocket. EADS Astrium is the satellite prime contractor, and has managed an industrial team of more than 50 contractors.

For its fourth launch of the year Arianespace will boost three satellites into orbit on 13 October: DirecTV 9S for American operator DirecTV, Inc., Optus D1 for the Australian operator Optus, and the experimental satellite LDREX-2 for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

The mechanical relay aboard the Hubble Space Telescope that had likely malfunctioned because of contamination seems to be working again, but engineers are now looking for alternate routes to power all three channels of the satellite’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).