Satellite News

Astrium has signed a partnership agreement with the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology (VAST) to develop an Earth observation optical satellite system.

Mission controllers confirmed that ESA’s comet chaser Rosetta had swung by Earth at 0745 UTC as planned, skimming past our planet to pick up a gravitational boost for the journey to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014.

Four of the six satellites launched for Orbcomm on 19 June 2008 are now considered (technical) total losses by the company. Orbcomm also considers all six spacecraft – the U.S. Coast Guard demonstration satellite (CDS) and five quick-launch satellites – total constructive losses for insurance purposes.

Japan’s Himawari 6 weather satellite (aka MTSAT 1R) suffered an attitude loss on 11 November, 1225 UTC. Meteorological services have been switched to backup satellite Himawari 7 (MTSAT 2).

Astrotech Corporation announced financial results for the first quarter ending 30 September 2009 of its fiscal year 2010.