Satellite News

SpaceDev has been selected by the California Space Authority (CSA) as a recipient of the 2006 SpotBeam Award for space innovation.

Satelites Mexicanos, S.A. de C.V. announced that it has appointed Raul Cisneros Matusita to serve as the new CEO of Satmex, effective 30 November 2006, to help chart a new direction for the Company. His appointment was made on the same day the company officially concluded its U.S. bankruptcy case.

China Central Television (CCTV), the national broadcaster of the People’s Republic of China, renewed a multi-year contract for the global distribution of its programming via several of Intelsat’s PAS satellites.

EMS Technologies, Inc. announced that it has completed the sale of its EMS Wireless division to Andrew Corporation.

Boeing and Lockheed Martin announced that they have completed the transaction combining their expendable launch vehicle businesses, forming the 50-50 joint venture called United Launch Alliance, LLC (ULA).

KT Corp. said its Koreasat-5, also known as Mugunghwa-5, has started its commercial operation.

ESA’s Envisat satellite and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) geostationary data relay test satellite Kodama have successfully completed an interoperability test demonstrating that scientific data from Envisat can be transmitted to Kodama and from there transmitted to the Japanese ground receiving station in Tsukuba.

Specialists at the Mission Control Centre based near Moscow have decided not to conduct another ISS orbit correction on 2 December but possibly later, Itar-Tass news agency reports. A problem with an ISS circuit breaker has meanwhile been traced back to a software glitch and is not expected to affect the upcoming shuttle mission to the station.