Satellite News

The Sentinel-5 Precursor platform and the TROPOMI instrument have been integrated together to form the satellite which will be leaving the UK for testing. Airbus Defence and Space will deliver the spacecraft to Intespace in Toulouse, France, for final system level testing. The spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in April 2016 by a Eurokot rocket from Plesetsk, Russia.

ABS and FSM Telecommunications Corporation (FSMTC) announced that they have signed a multi-year, multi-transponder deal on ABS-6, C-band. The capacity agreement will provide Internet connectivity to support FSMTC’s growing business.

Rocket: Delta IV Medium-plus (5,4); Payload: WGS-7 (Wideband Global SATCOM 7); Date: 24 July 2015, 0007 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. The satellite was successfully placed into geostationary transfer orbit.

Components for another Ariane 5 have arrived in French Guiana – with the latest heavy-lift vehicle scheduled to orbit two telecommunications spacecraft during September: NBN Co 1A for Australia’s National Broadband Network, and ARSAT-2 for Argentinean satellite operator ARSAT.

COM DEV International Ltd. has received an order to supply equipment for two commercial communications satellites. The initial Authorisation to Proceed (ATP) is valued at approximately C$11 million, and is expected to lead to a full contract in excess of C$45 million . COM DEV is scheduled to complete its work at its facilities in Cambridge by the end of fiscal 2016.

SES S.A. reported financial results for the first half of 2015.

Avealto has completed initial feasibility evaluation of its free flying test vehicle in its development programme to build a commercial High Altitude Platform (“HAP”). The Avealto test vehicle was successfully launched on 14 June 2015 from a desert launch site near Lovelock, Nevada, in the Western USA. The vehicle landed intact and flight telemetry has now been fully evaluated.

The transportation spacecraft Soyuz TMA-17M carrying an international crew of Expedition ISS-44/45, consisting of Roskosmos cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui and U.S. astronaut Kjell Lindgren, has successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS). However, just as last year during the launch of Soyuz TMA-14M, one of the vessel’s solar panels did not initially deploy.