Satellite News

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak will promote the sale of a spy satellite to Turkey during a visit to Ankara this week, Reuters quoted unnamed Israeli security sources as saying.

Thales Alenia Space said that the SAR Interferometer radar altimeter SIRAL-2 has been delivered in due time to EADS Astrium GmbH (Immenstaad, Germany), the prime contractor of the CryoSat-2 mission.

Iran will launch two more research rockets into space before putting its first domestically built satellite into orbit, president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.

Rocket: Proton-M/Briz-M; Payload: Thor 5 (Thor 2R); Date: 11 February 2008, 1134 UTC; Site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The relatively small satellite was successfully injected directly into geostationary orbit.

“There were winners and losers in the contractor community as to who was going to get to do what on the next system post shuttle. And we didn’t pick (Lockheed Martin’s) Atlas 5, in consultation with the Air Force for that matter, because it wasn’t the right vehicle for the lunar job. Obviously, we did pick others. So people who didn’t get picked see an opportunity to throw the issue into controversy and maybe have it come out their way.” – NASA administrator Mike Griffin about questions regarding Ares I vibration and other issues. (CBS News via Spaceflight Now)

ViaSat Inc. announced that it has appointed Tom Moore as Senior Vice President of the company and President of the recently announced ViaSat-1 Ka-band broadband satellite initiative, effective immediately.

OHB Technology AG said that expected earnings of probably more than EUR0.80 per share in the past fiscal year 2007 exceed the company’s forecast of November 2007 (EUR0.78 per share).

TerreStar Corporation and its subsidiary TerreStar Networks Inc. announced that EchoStar Corporation, Harbinger Capital Partners Master Fund I, Ltd. and Harbinger Capital Partners Special Situations Fund LP and other investors have entered into a series of separate agreements constituting a commitment of US$300 million in investments in TerreStar – with US$200 million made available today and the balance dedicated to funding the TerreStar-2 satellite.