Satellite News

The Director-General of EUMETSAT, Dr. Lars Prahm, and the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Arianespace, Jean-Yves Le Gall, have signed the contract for the launch service for the last Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellite, MSG-4.

Rocket: Kosmos 3M; Payload: SAR-Lupe 5; Date: 22 July 2008, 0240 UTC; Site: Plesetsk, Russia. The launcher deployed the radar satellite in Low-earth orbit at an altitude of around 500 km after roughly half an hour.

NASA said it had not officially or unofficially been discussing the purchase of H-II Transfer Vehicles (HTV) from JAXA.

XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. announced preliminary results for the second quarter of 2008.

U.S. hedge fund Harbinger said it remains interested in buying Inmarsat but is suspending talks because of the lengthy regulatory process involved in such a deal.

Northrop Grumman said its Global Positioning System Next Generation Ground Control Segment (GPS OCX) team recently completed the Standard Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Appraisal Method for Process Improvement (SCAMPI) software assessment.

DirecTV Inc. has taken on-orbit delivery of the DirecTV 11 satellite.

Assembly works on the prospective Soyuz launch pad at the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana will begin in the middle of August, First Deputy Director General of the General Machine Building Design Bureau Vladimir Klimov said.