Satellite News

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has completed integration of WorldView-3, the next generation commercial remote-sensing satellite being built for DigitalGlobe. WorldView-3, the fourth remote-sensing satellite built for DigitalGlobe by Ball, is scheduled to launch from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base in summer 2014.

Eutelsat Communications announced the signature of long-term capacity agreements on the Eutelsat 16A satellite with three of Romania’s flagship channels, Kanal D, B1 TV and Trinitas TV.

Rocket: Atlas V 401; Payload: TDRS-L; Date: 24 January 2013, 0233 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. Ground controllers report the satellite is in good health after the successful launch into geostationary transfer orbit.

Northrop Grumman Corporation successfully passed the last significant mission design milestone for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the spacecraft Critical Design Review (CDR), five months ahead of schedule, following the replan.

NASA’s Opportunity team celebrated the Mars Exploration Rover’s 10th anniversary on Mars.

Spacebel informed me that the company “signed the FINAL Contract with VAST for the supply of VNREDSat-1b (and not a pre-contract agreement as mentioned in your article). SPACEBEL is prime of the Belgian consortium.”

Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) announced that it has confirmed that the first orbital flight of its Dream Chaser Space System will occur on 1 November 2016. Dream Chaser will be brought to orbit on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket that will launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Virgin Galactic announced that it has reached a significant milestone in the testing of a new family of liquid rocket engines for LauncherOne, the company’s small satellite launch vehicle.