Satellite News

NASA has selected a new satellite mission and a new space-based instrument to begin development as part of the agency’s Heliophysics Explorer Program. The projects will provide space observations to study Earth’s ionosphere and thermosphere.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has been selected by the U.S. Air Force to perform risk reduction work on the next generation of microwave sounding and imaging instruments for the Weather Satellite Follow-on programme.

ESA’s retired GIOVE-A navigation mission has become the first civilian satellite to perform GPS position fixes from high orbit. Its results demonstrate that current satnav signals could guide missions much further away in space, up to geostationary orbit or even as far as the Moon.

NASA and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are requesting research and development proposals to define the type of spacecraft computing needed for future missions.

ESA’s space freighter ATV Albert Einstein will be the heaviest spacecraft ever launched into space by an Ariane rocket when it lifts off to the International Space Station on 5 June.

The Kazakh space agency said plans to launch its first medium-resolution remote sensing satellite in the fourth quarter of 2013 from Russia’s Yasny Cosmodrome.

Russia’s NPO Lavochkin has won a defence ministry tender on the development of a series of five high-resolution optical-electronic surveillance satellites worth almost RUB70 billion (US$2.2 billion).

Belarus and Russia are planning to set up an advanced civilian satellite grouping, Pyotr Vityaz, a spokesman for the Belarusian National Academy of Sciences, was quoted as saying.