Satellite News

Citing Interfax news agency, The Moscow Times reports that university students in Russia’s Far East could be put to work by the state to finish construction of the delay-ridden Vostochny cosmodrome.

During its most recent close flyby last Saturday, where Rosetta flew within 14 km of the surface of its target comet, the spacecraft experienced significant difficulties in navigation. This resulted in its high gain antenna starting to drift away from pointing at the Earth, impacting communications, and was subsequently followed by a ‘safe mode’ event. The spacecraft has now been successfully recovered, but it will take a little longer to resume normal scientific operations.

The engineering and technology group SENER has been awarded the contract for the Attitude and Orbit Control System (AOCS/GNC) on the space probe Euclid. This award makes SENER the prime contractor for this AOCS subsystem that requires the highest level of performance

Last month marked the start of preliminary design work on ESA’s Asteroid Impact Mission, or AIM. Intended to demonstrate technologies for future deep-space missions, AIM will also be the Agency’s very first investigation of planetary defence techniques.

COM DEV International Ltd. announced that it has secured four orders totalling nearly C$10 million to supply microwave equipment for communication satellites for new customers from its recently expanded operations in the UK.

The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission Core Satellite’s Microwave Imager (GMI) built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. under contract for NASA has performed flawlessly in its first year on orbit as the most accurately calibrated radiometer in the twelve-satellite GPM constellation.