Satellite News

Alliant Techsystems announced that James Halsell, former NASA Astronaut and space shuttle programme launch integration manager, has been named Vice President and Program Manager of the ATK-led Ares I Upper Stage team, based in Huntsville, Alabama.

SES Astra and SES New Skies announced an agreement to broadcast France 24, the new French channel for international news, on an Astra satellite at 19.2 degrees East for Europe and on the NSS-7 satellite at 22 degrees West serving the African continent.

Toshiba Corporation announced the development of a gallium nitride (GaN) power field effect transistor (FET) that far surpasses the operating performance of gallium arsenide (GaAs) FETs widely used in microwave solid-state amplifiers for radar and satellite microwave communications in the 8 GHz to 12 GHz X-band frequency range.

Russia will lift all precision restrictions for the civilian signal of the Glonass navigation system on 1 January 2007, the country’s defence minister Sergei Ivanov said.

ESA’s Science Programme Committee (SPC) has approved a 9 months extension of ESA involvement in the Double Star Programme (DSP) operations from 1 January 2007 to 30 September 2007. The Double Star mission is the first mission conducted in collaboration between ESA and the Chinese National Space Administration.

Integral Systems, Inc. has been awarded a contract by AsiaSat to add operations of the AsiaSat 5 satellite (a Loral FS1300 class satellite) to AsiaSat’s existing satellite control system.

China is expected to launch two Beidou navigation satellites early next year as part of a plan to build a global navigation positioning network, China Daily reports citing “aerospace insiders.”

A ban on launching Dnepr carrier rockets from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan that was imposed after a Russian Dnepr crashed in that country may be lifted within days, Russian Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) chief Anatoly Perminov said.