Satellite News

Aerojet Rocketdyne announced that its XR-5 high-power Hall Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) system has initiated orbit raising operations on the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) Space Vehicle 3 (SV-3) that launched 18 September aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

Effective 1 October, Y.K. Bae Corporation has been awarded US$500,000 from NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Phase 2 programme to further develop the company’s Photonic Laser Thruster (PLT) technology. This two year research and development phase will result in a scaled-up laboratory demonstration of PLT propulsion with space qualified lasers in a vacuum environment.

COM DEV Europe was selected to provide the Telemetry, Tracking and Command (TT&C) Transponder equipment to Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) for the first six spacecraft in the FORMOSAT-7 global weather forecasting programme.

The Aerospace Corporation started implementing a partial work shutdown on 3 October after the U.S. Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center directed Aerospace to stop work immediately on all but excepted mission-critical tasks.