Satellite News

Two previous Proton failures are now blamed on the same design flaw hat led to the latest crash of the rocket.

The launch of the Soyuz-2.1b rocket with a military satellite, previously scheduled for 5 June, has been indefinitely postponed. It will be carried out only after the investigation of the Progress M-27M cargo spacecraft accident is competed, a rocket and space industry source was quoted as saying by Tass news agency.

Iridium Communications Inc. announced it has completed the first satellite payload-to-bus integration on an Iridium NEXT satellite. This successful mating of the communication payload and the Aireon hosted payload to the platform is yet another critical milestone achieved in the production process, bringing the overall constellation one step closer to launch, the company said.

COM DEV International Ltd. announced that it has completed the purchase of Pacific Wave Systems (PWS), a leading manufacturer of waveguides for the global satellite industry. The US$20.1 million purchase has been financed by a combination of cash on hand and a C$20 million acquisition term debt facility.

Intelsat S.A. and BT Group confirmed that BT has renewed and expanded services on three Intelsat satellites, spanning the Asia-Pacific, Africa and Latin America regions.