Satellite News

The preliminary requirements for Europe’s next-generation Ariane 6 launcher have been agreed and the project is set to move on to the next stage.

Close to 0000 UTC on 11 November, ESA’s GOCE satellite re-entered Earth’s atmosphere on a descending orbit pass that extended across Siberia, the western Pacific Ocean, the eastern Indian Ocean and Antarctica. As expected, the satellite disintegrated in the high atmosphere and no damage to property has been reported.

The fourth orbit-raising operation conducted on ISRO’s Mars Orbiter Spacecraft fell short of its goal as flow to the liquid engine stopped. It is expected that the problem can be overcome.

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity experienced an unexpected software reboot (also known as a warm reset)on 7 November during a communications pass as it was sending engineering and science data to the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, for later downlinking to Earth.

OHB AG reported financial results for the first nine months of 2013.

Orbcomm Inc. announced financial results for the third quarter ending 30 September 2013.

Hitachi, Ltd. and Mitsubishi Corporation announced that MC agreed to sell, and Hitachi agreed to purchase, 51% of the issued shares of Japan Space Imaging Corporation (JSI), a subsidiary of MC, and that Hitachi and MC will jointly operate the satellite imagery business through JSI from 15 November 2013.

Alphasat’s laser communications terminal correctly identified its target at ESA’s ground station on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands for the first time on 4 November, proving that it can be pointed precisely enough to hit a point more than 36,000 km away.