Satellite News

The Global Positioning System (GPS) Block IIR and IIR-M satellite constellation, designed and built by Lockheed Martin, has accumulated over 75 years of successful on-orbit operations, the company said.

Integral Systems, Inc., announced the on-schedule handover of satellite bus operations for the initial WGS (Wideband Global SATCOM) satellite to the CCS-C (Command and Control System – Consolidated) baseline.

Swedish Space Corporation has been commissioned by the Swedish National Space Board to control and operate the scientific satellite Odin for an additional year, until December 2008.

The head of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expressed concern over a contractor’s slow development of a critical new sensor. He made his remarks during a meeting of the tri-agency NPOESS Executive Committee (EXCOM) and took the rather unusual step of also publishing them in a press release.

Russia’s First Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Ivanov has threatened to sack Roskosmos officials unless they get on with rebuilding the ailing GLONASS constellation. It has become clear that Russia has missed its goal to have 18 operational GLONASS navigation satellites in orbit at the beginning of this year.

Russia refuses to launch South Africa’s SumbandilaSat because of a quarrel over a ground station, Itar-Tass reports.