Satellite News

One of the satellites launched on India’s most recent PSLV mission was missing in yesterday’s article: Indonesia’s LAPAN-A2, which at a mass of 78 kg actually was the second-heaviest payload on board after ASTROSAT.

Successful test firings of key propulsion components marked the latest sign of progress for Virgin Galactic’s dedicated small satellite launch vehicle, LauncherOne, the company said.

Private joint-stock company Energia-Telcom is to temporarily lease to Open joint-stock Company RTComm.RU bandwidth needed to provide telecommunications services in the Ka-band on the planned Energia-100 high-throughput satellite.

Thales Alenia Space has signed a contract with French space agency CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales) covering the design and development phase for the Poseidon-3C radar altimeter on the SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) satellite, new altimetry programme that will demonstrate new applications.

NSR’s Satellite Operator Financial Analysis (SOFA), 5th Edition, finds that as GEO-HTS payloads continue to become more prevalent, satellite operator business models are encountering dramatic effects, including altered CAPEX cycles, lower backlogs, and falling revenues per transponder.

Rocket: PSLV-C30; Payload: ASTROSAT, six small satellites; Date: 28 September 2015, 0430 UTC; Launch site: Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota, India. ASTROSAT, the country’s Multi Wavelength Space Observatory was launched along with six foreign customer satellites into a 644.6 km x 651.5 km x 6 degrees orbit, which is very close to the intended one. This was the thirtieth consecutive success for PSLV.

Eutelsat 115 West B, the first all-electric satellite of the Eutelsat Communications’ fleet, has completed the ascent to geostationary orbit and today began in orbit tests.

Orbital ATK, Inc. announced it concluded eight years of mission support for the Near Field Infrared Experiment (NFIRE) satellite with the decommissioning of the spacecraft on 5 August 2015.