Satellite News

Launched from Kourou in French Guiana on the night of 28 February 2002, ESA’s Envisat spacecraft marks its fifth year in space.

Loral Space & Communications announced that it has completed its sale of US$300 million of convertible perpetual preferred stock to affiliates of MHR Fund Management LLC, Loral’s largest shareholder.

Iridium Satellite LLC plans to open a new telemetry, tracking and command/control (TTAC) Earth station in Norway.

SpaceDev announced that its subsidiary, Starsys, Inc., has been awarded a US$1.4 million cost reimbursable design and development subcontract with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in support of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission.

ESA’s Mars Express and Venus Express missions will continue to operate until early-May 2009. The decision was unanimously taken by ESA’s Science Programme Committee last Friday.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft successfully completed a flyby of Jupiter, using the massive planet’s gravity to pick up speed for its 4.8-billion km voyage to Pluto and the unexplored Kuiper Belt region beyond.

COM DEV International Ltd. announced that it has received an Authorisation to Proceed (ATP) from Alcatel Alenia Space to provide advanced payload electronics for the Globalstar-2 satellite constellation.

Aerojet said it recently conducted an internally-funded static firing of a key Launch Abort System component. Orion’s Launch Abort System is a new capability that will allow the astronaut crew to safely escape in the event of an emergency during launch.