Satellite News

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) has received an order from the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST), an organisation established by the Dubai Government in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), for launch services for the KhalifaSat observation satellite.

Assembly of the ascent unit has begun at Baikonur for the Proton-M launch vehicle scheduled to orbit the Russian Express-AM7 satellite on 19 March.

Activities for Arianespace’s Ariane 5 launch next month have moved into a new phase as the first of this heavy-lift mission’s two payloads is fuelled in French Guiana.

On 12 March, Rosetta will begin listening for signs that the comet lander Philae is still “alive.” The lander came to rest on 12 November 2014 in a rather shaded location on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and needs to receive sufficient energy before it can wake up and begin communicating. This is the first chance to receive a signal from Philae.

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) has been successfully integrated on- board NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System-1 (JPSS-1) satellite.

Aerojet Rocketdyne, a GenCorp company, announced that it has launched a continuous, multi-faceted competitive improvement programme (CIP) aimed at reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency among its 14 sites that are located in 11 states across the USA.