Satellite News

Unless significant new hazards are found, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will stay on its original course past Pluto and its moons, after mission managers concluded that the danger posed by dust and debris in the Pluto system is less than they once feared.

Sharp Corporation has achieved the world’s highest solar cell conversion efficiency of 44.4%, using a concentrator triple-junction compound solar cell. These solar cells are used in a lens-based concentrator system that focuses sunlight on the cells to generate electricity.

Saft has been awarded a multi-million dollar contract from Boeing to build Li-ion batteries for the new SES-9 satellite. Separately, Saft has been awarded a US$1.2-million dollar contract from Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., to supply the lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery for a LEO (low Earth orbit) satellite programme.

GenCorp Inc. announced that it has completed the acquisition of substantially all operations of the Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne business (Rocketdyne) from United Technologies Corporation.

SES announced that the company’s President and CEO Romain Bausch informed the Board of Directors that he plans to step down from his position at the next annual general meeting of shareholders in April 2014.

The Satellite Industry Association (SIA) has released its 2013 State of the Satellite Industry Report, showing a 7% growth in world satellite industry revenues in 2012, up from 5% growth in 2011. Globally, 2012 revenues for the satellite industry totalled US$189.5 billion, up from US$177.3 billion the previous year.

The Astra 2E telecommunications spacecraft, manufactured for satellite operator SES by EADS Astrium, Toulouse, France, has arrived at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, where it will be processed for launch aboard a Proton Briz M launch vehicle.

Payload preparations for Arianespace’s third Ariane 5 mission in 2013 have commenced following this week’s delivery of INSAT-3D, which is one of two spacecraft that will be lofted on a heavy-lift flight targeted for the second half of July.