Satellite News

The build-up of Ariane 5’s dual-passenger configuration is underway at French Guiana, where this mission’s upper satellite is now encapsulated in the launcher’s payload fairing.

Aerojet Rocketdyne has been awarded a contract worth approximately US$18 million from NASA Glenn Research Center to complete the development of NASA’s Evolutionary Xenon Thruster-Commercial (NEXT-C) Gridded Ion Thruster System.

Dr. M. Annadurai, Outstanding Scientist and Programme Director, Indian Remote Sensing Satellites (IRS) and Small Satellite Systems (SSS) of ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC), Bangalore, has assumed the office of Director, ISAC on 1 April 2015. He took over as Director, ISAC from Dr. S K Shivakumar, who superannuated on 31 March 2015.

Orbital ATK, Inc. announced that yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the first flight of its Pegasus air-launched rocket. The world’s first all-new privately-developed space launch vehicle, Pegasus was developed in the late 1980’s in a joint venture between Orbital Sciences Corporation and Hercules Aerospace Company, a predecessor to ATK Inc., and was first launched on 5 April 1990.

Orbital ATK is teamed with United Launch Alliance (ULA) to launch NASA’s Solar Probe Plus (SPP) mission on ULA’s Delta IV Heavy rocket. A fully integrated third stage provided by Orbital ATK will give the spacecraft the high-energy boost needed to send it on its mission to study the Sun’s outer atmosphere.

Having orbited Earth more than 5,300 times while providing radar vision for Europe’s Copernicus programme, the Sentinel-1A satellite has completed a successful first year. The satellite carries an advanced radar to provide an all-weather, day-and-night supply of images of Earth’s surface.

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.