Satellite News

The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Supervisory Authority of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) have signed an agreement opening up the European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) and Galileo programmes to further co-operation.

The European Space Agency said Europe’s first satellite-borne rubidium clocks, in orbit for more than a year, have been operating largely in line with the specifications.

A top-level panel of the European Space Agency (ESA) is to meet in Paris this week to decide whether to beef up the ExoMars rover mission as requested by scientists.

On 18 May the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Agency’s Orbital Express team successfully captured the NextSat client spacecraft with the ASTRO servicing satellite, after a critical failure of ASTRO’s primary sensor flight computer (AC-2) on 11 May that had the two spacecraft drift apart.

Al Yah Satellite Communications Company (YahSat), United Arab Emirates, has selected a consortium of EADS Astrium and Thales Alenia Space as the preferred bidder to build a AED5 billion plus (EUR1.011 billion, US$1.362 billion) satellite communications system.