Satellite News

NanoRacks announced successful deployment of the first two cubesats from the International Space Station (ISS) that will be the largest cubesat deployment in history. The first two cubesats are part of a constellation of 28 satellites for its customer, Planet Labs.

Space Systems/Loral (SSL) was awarded a contract by Skybox Imaging to build an advanced constellation of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites for Earth imaging.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden and Jean-Yves Le Gall, president of the National Center of Space Studies of France (CNES), signed an implementing agreement Monday for co-operation on a future NASA Mars lander called the Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport (InSight) mission.

Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, India’s first interplanetary probe, completes 100 days in space tomorrow (12 February 2014). The spacecraft and its instruments are healthy.

SES has signed a long-term renewal with Towercom, a Slovakian telecommunications and TV operator, for the use of a transponder on the Astra 3B satellite at SES’s 23.5 degrees East orbital position.

A Proton M launch vehicle is to launch Turksat-4A on 14 February 2013, 2109 UTC, from Pad 24 at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. It will be the first ILS launch of 2014.

ISS-Reshetnev Company has commenced mating the platform and the payload module of the telecommunications satellite Ekspress-AM8.

Azerkosmos JSC of the Azerbaijani Communications and IT Ministry has announced a tender for the construction of the second telecommunications satellite Azerspace-2, Azerbaijani Communications and IT Minister Ali Abbasov was quoted as saying.