Satellite News

Telekom Austria Group and ANTIK Telekom, the largest regional telco in Slovakia, have selected the Eutelsat 16A satellite of Eutelsat Communications for their new Direct-to-Home platform for the Slovak and Czech market.

International Launch Services (ILS) announces the appointment of Kirk Pysher as president. Mr. Pysher will take over leadership from Phil Slack, who served as president of ILS since 2012. Khrunichev State Research and Space Production Center (Khrunichev), the majority owner of ILS, has provided its full endorsement of Mr. Pysher as the new head of ILS.

United Launch Alliance (ULA) and Blue Origin, LLC announced the signing of an agreement to expand production capabilities for the BE-4 engine that will power the Vulcan next generation launch system.

Firefly Space Systems, a Texas-based developer of dedicated launch vehicles for the small satellite market, announced that it has successfully tested its first rocket engine, Firefly Rocket Engine Research 1 (“FRE-R1″).

The ABS-3A satellite is now in full commercial use. The satellite started service on 31 August 2015 to serve the Americas, Africa, Europe and the Middle East regions.

The Italian Space Agency and NASA signed an agreement on elaboration and analysis of Earth Observation data. NASA will now be able to use Italian COSMO-SkyMed programme data.

BridgeSat, Inc. announced an agreement with Draper Laboratory to support the development of the ground stations that are an integral part of BridgeSat’s optical connectivity system.

United Launch Alliance reportedly is the subject of a US$2 billion bid from Aerojet Rocketdyne.