Satellite News

ViaSat, Inc. finalised a US$35 million dollar subcontract modification with Boeing Integrated Defense Systems for the Family of Advanced Beyond-line-of-sight Terminals (FAB-T) programme.

Mobile Satellite Ventures has been awarded its sixteenth patent relating to Ancillary Terrestrial Component (”ATC”) technology by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The patent addresses essential architectural aspects of ATC technology, the linchpin of MSV’s next generation integrated satellite- terrestrial wireless broadband network.

The TANGO (Telecommunications Advanced Networks for GMES Operations) project led by Astrium Satellites has been selected for co-funding by the European Commission.

Integral Systems, Inc. reported its financial results for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006.

New findings indicate that the aurora and other near-Earth space weather are driven by the rate at which the Earth’s and Sun’s magnetic fields connect, or merge, and not by the solar wind’s electric field as was previously assumed.

Fengyun-2D, China’s new meteorological satellite launched on 8 December, has successfully entered a “quasi-synchronous” orbit as directed by ground-control, according to the Xi’an satellite control centre.

Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) said that the WildBlue-1 satellite, after its successful launch on 8 December, has successfully deployed its solar arrays and completed thruster manoeuvres that have placed it in a circular geosynchronous orbit.

Iran’s Zohreh [”Venus,” sometimes also transcribed Zoreh or Zohre] satellite may be launched no earlier than 2009, and not in 2007 as originally planned, a Russian Federal Space Agency official was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass.