Satellite News

Northrop Grumman Corporation said it has delivered fourth AEHF payload to prime contractor Lockheed Martin 4 1/2 months early.

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. announced that its Kratos Integral Systems Europe (Kratos ISE) subsidiary has been awarded a contract to extend the existing Capacity Management Center (CMC) of Es’hailSat, the Qatar Satellite Company, to accommodate the Es’hail-2 satellite, scheduled to launch in late 2016.

The Swedish Space Corporation, SSC, said it is successfully providing ground station support to the Spanish satellite DEIMOS-2, which started providing commercial services to users around the world on 3 November.

SES Government Solutions (SES GS) hosted a capabilities demonstration of the O3b satellite constellation for U.S. Government customers at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. Members of the armed forces witnessed the enhanced communications capabilities available to them through the new O3b satellite fleet, including increased information throughput and significantly reduced latency.

Rocket: Ariane 5 ECA; Payload: DirecTV-14, GSAT-16 ; Date: 6 December 2014, 2040 UTC; Launch site: Kourou, French Guyana. The satellites were successfully inserted into geostationary transfer orbit.

Rocket: Chang Zheng-4B; Payload: CBERS-4; Date: 7 December 2014, 0326 UTC; Launch site: Taiyuan satellite launch centre, China. The satellite was placed in its target orbit.

On 28 November 2014, the flight control team at ESOC reported loss of contact with Venus Express.

After a voyage of nearly nine years and 4.8 billion kilometers – the farthest any space mission has ever travelled to reach its primary target – NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft came out of hibernation for its 2015 encounter with the Pluto system.