Satellite News

Rocket: Ariane 5 ECA; Payload: Measat 3b, Optus 10; Date: 11 September 2014, 2205 UTC; Launch site: Kourou, French Guiana. Confirmation from on-board telemetry systems indicated that Measat 3b and Optus 10 were separated from the upper stage as planned.

Yang Liwei, deputy director of the China Manned Space Agency, said that infrastructure construction on the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center in the southern island province of Hainan has been completed and that the station will soon become operational.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has been selected by Laser Light Communications, LLC to be its prime contractor for the first global, all-optical commercial satellite system. Space-based laser communication provides a new way to move vast amounts of information around the globe efficiently and with greater resiliency.

Exelis announced the second flight unit of the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) successfully completed environmental testing and is six months ahead of schedule for delivery to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). ABI is the primary payload for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R (GOES-R) series of weather satellites.

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. announced that its Kratos Integral Systems Europe (Kratos ISE) subsidiary has delivered a new Satellite Business Intelligence (SBI) dashboard to Es’hailSat, the Qatar satellite company. The SBI dashboard will enable the operator to leverage advanced Big Data technology to better manage service levels and optimise satellite operations.