Satellite News

Rocket: Atlas V/Centaur; Payload: AEHF-2; Date: 4 May 2012, 1842 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. Ground controllers have established communications with the spacecraft and confirmed the craft is operating properly.

Aerojet announced that its AJ26 engine successfully completed a hot-fire test yesterday at NASA’s Stennis Space Center. Orbital Sciences Corporation (Orbital), Aerojet and NASA monitored the full-duration test in support of the Antares rocket programme. This is the eighth AJ26 engine to be tested at Stennis.

OHB System AG officially opened its new satellite integration hall. The new integration hall bears the name of the Galileo satellite navigation system.

GeoEye, Inc. announced that it is proposing to acquire DigitalGlobe, Inc.

A new U.S. National Research Council report says that budget shortfalls, cost-estimate growth, launch failures, and changes in mission design and scope have left U.S. Earth observation systems in a more precarious position than they were five years ago.

by Rajiv Hazaray

Bordertown, NJ, May 2, 2012–During Satellite 2012, the Society of Satellite Professionals International (SSPI) bestowed the Industry Innovators Awards on Eutelsat Communications and ViaSat Inc in recognition of the development and launch of their High Throughput Satellites (HTS), KA-SAT and ViaSat-1, respectively. High frequency reuse and multiple spot beam architecture have packed 10 times capacity on these Ka-Band satellites without any deployment cost penalties.
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