Satellite News

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. announced that it has signed a contract for C$7.4 million with Natural Resources Canada (NRCan). MDA will provide In-Service Support to maintain and operate Canada’s national ground station infrastructure at Inuvik, Prince Albert, and Gatineau.

Khrunichev Space Center (KhSC) and OAO Russian Space Systems (RSS), both affiliates of URSC, in the process of expanding their mutually beneficial co-operation, have agreed to reduce by 10% the cost of RSS-manufactured hardware for the Proton-M booster and Briz-M Upper Stage.

OneWeb, which plans to build a new global broadband communications system announced it has raised US$500 million of funding from a group of leading international companies. OneWeb also announced the largest commercial rocket acquisition ever of more than 65 rockets. In addition, the company will co-operate with Intelsat and Hughes.

The EUMETSAT Council successfully concluded the approval process for the EUMETSAT Polar System Second Generation (EPS-SG) programme with all 30 Member States having now firmly committed themselves.

Russia’s Radio-Electronic Technologies Group (KRET) is developing a fundamentally new electronic warfare system capable of suppressing cruise missile and other high-precision weaponry guidance systems and satellite radio-electronic equipment, KRET Deputy CEO Yuri Mayevsky was quoted as saying by TASS.

Aerojet Rocketdyne recently was awarded a contract from Lockheed Martin to deliver XR-5 Hall Effect and MR-510 Arcjet electric propulsion subsystems, as well as monopropellant rocket engines for the modernised A2100 satellite.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. has signed a contract amendment with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to further develop and test the Payload Orbital Delivery (POD) system as part of DARPA’s Phoenix programme. This project was originally announced in November 2013.

SSTL said it is now downloading data from its newly installed ground station in Svalbard, which will maximise contact with the company’s polar-orbiting satellites.