Satellite News

Russia would hand a launch complex at Kazakhstan’s Baikonur space centre over to the Central Asian nation next year, a Kazakh official was quoted as saying.

Aerojet Rocketdyn successfully completed a series of hot-fire tests on a Bantam demonstration engine built entirely with additive manufacturing (aka 3D printing). The tests were a key step in the development of a more cost-effective engine family for booster, upper-stage and in-space propulsion, the company said.

The protected communications payload built by Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC) for the U.S. Air Force’s third Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite has completed on orbit testing ahead of schedule without any discrepancies, matching the high performance levels of others the company has provided.

ATK received a contract from Lockheed Martin Space Systems to provide the UltraFlex solar arrays for NASA’s InSight Lander mission, which will place a lander on Mars in 2016 to study the red planet’s deep interior.

Faced with the challenge of capturing tumbling satellites to clear key orbits, ESA is considering turning to an ancient terrestrial technology: the harpoon.

The first external global government test of Inmarsat’s game-changing Global Xpress (GX) Ka-band network has been completed.