Satellite News

Rocket: Dnepr; Payload: DubaiSat 2, STSAT 3, SkySat 1, AprizeSat 7, AprizeSat 8 and several smaller satellites; Date: 21 November 2013, 0710 UTC; Launch Site: Yasny, Russia. All payloads were successfully deployed into orbit.

Arianespace and ELV (European Launch Vehicle) have signed an agreement for Arianespace to order 10 Vega launch vehicles from the Italian manufacturer.

Alphasat has reached its operational in-orbit position and has successfully completed all in-orbit tests.

NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) is ready to begin collecting science data about the moon.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. has been authorised to proceed with development of a Payload Orbital Delivery system (POD) for the DARPA Phoenix mission. The expected contract value for full development of the flight system is US$6 million.

Science observations by NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity have been suspended for a few days while engineers run tests to check possible causes of a voltage change detected on 17 November.

The Lockheed Martin prototype of the next-generation Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite, the GPS III, recently proved it was backward-compatible with the existing GPS satellite constellation in orbit.

Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL) announced that its space-based S-band radar system, NovaSAR, has won an Innovation award for Navigation and Surveillance Communications from The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).