Satellite News

A Delta II 7320 will launch the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) mission for NASA on 1 July at 0956 UTC.

The Mexican Ministry of Communications and Transportation (SCT) and Boeing are a step closer to enhancing Mexico’s mobile communications capabilities for government applications with the completion of the second Mexsat 702HP (high power) geomobile satellite.

After more than 13 years of helping predict weather and climate patterns and save lives in search and rescue operations, NOAA announced it has turned off the NOAA-16 Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellite (POES). It was one of NOAA’s longest operating spacecraft, which have a planned lifespan of three to five years.

Northrop Grumman Corporation has been awarded a contract from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) to provide space inertial reference systems for the GEO-KOMPSAT-2 space satellite programme.

Three NASA science instruments aboard the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft, which is set to become the first to orbit a comet and land a probe on its nucleus, are beginning observations and sending science data back to Earth.

ESA said that new commercial receivers and related products can now be rigorously tested to pinpoint any vulnerability to counterfeit satnav signals – known as spoofing – so that countermeasures can then be developed.

All partner nations are now using the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) protected communications satellite system after the United Kingdom connected earlier this year. Four nations will use the Lockheed Martin-produced satellites for their most important transmissions, from commanders-in-chief to troops in the field.

Google Inc said that it is acquiring satellite company Skybox Imaging for US$500 million in cash.