Satellite News

The Ball Aerospace & Technologies-built Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft will emerge from its two-year hibernation next month to resume its near-Earth object NEOWISE asteroid hunting mission.

Globalstar, Inc. announced that the company has met all of the conditions precedent necessary for the effectiveness of the Amended and Restated COFACE Facility Agreement.

International Launch Services (ILS) has appointed Kirk Pysher as vice president of mission assurance and product development.

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said that the slow progress of construction at Russia’s Vostochny cosmodrome amounted to “sabotage.”

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. announced that it has recently received a contract to support the Stratolaunch Air Launch Vehicle System programme, based in Huntsville, Alabama.

Two meteorological payloads (Imaging System, Atmospheric Sounder) aboard India’s INSAT-3D have recently been activated. Performance of payloads are satisfactory and the preliminary images received are of good quality, ISRO said. The cameras are undergoing testing and commissioning phase.

The next satellite in the TDRS programme, TDRS-L, completed performance testing at the Boeing satellite facility in El Segundo and is ready for shipment to Kennedy Space Center, Florida, later this year in advance of a 2014 launch.

On 11 August, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope entered an extended phase of its mission — a deeper study of the high-energy cosmos. This is a significant step toward the science team’s planned goal of a decade of observations, ending in 2018.