Satellite News

Space Systems/Loral announced that it has been awarded a contract to provide a high power communications satellite. The company said that further information on the contract award will be released at a later date.

NEC Corporation announced the beginning of system design of asteroid explorer for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) Hayabusa 2 Project, a successor to the original Hayabusa asteroid explorer.

The U.S. Air Force has stopped work on the Defense Weather Satellite System to implement the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act and FY12 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

Russia’s Chibis-M microsatellite, which studies gamma-radiation generated by lightning in the atmosphere, separated from the Progress M-13M cargo vessel at 2318 UTC on 24 January.

Thales Alenia Space announced that it has completed integration of the fourth ICC (Integrated Cargo Carrier), the service module for the ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle), on behalf of the European Space Agency (ESA).

The U.S. Air Force’s fleet of Global Positioning System (GPS) Block IIR and IIR-M satellites has accumulated 150 collective years of successful on-orbit operations.

The Boeing Company reported financial results fourth-quarter 2011.

NASA has renamed its newest Earth-observing satellite in honour of the late Verner E. Suomi, a meteorologist at the University of Wisconsin who is recognised widely as “the father of satellite meteorology.”