Satellite News

Rocket: Atlas V 401; Payload: GPS IIF-11 (SVN 73); Date: 31 October 2015, 1613 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA: Spacecraft separation into the target orbit occurred at 1936 UTC.

NASA has selected United Launch Services to provide launch services for the agency’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-M (TDRS-M) mission. The mission will launch in October 2017 aboard an Atlas V 401 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

In October 2014, Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket suffered an anomaly during launch from Pad 0A of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia that resulted in the loss of the rocket and its cargo and damage to the launch pad. Orbital ATK immediately convened an Accident Investigation Board (AIB). NASA established an independent review team that has now released its review of the accident.

The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) announced its selection of Astro Aerospace, a Northrop Grumman Corporation (NOC) company, to design and manufacture the radar antenna for its NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) satellite.

SES S.A. reported financial results for the three months ending 30 September 2015.

DigitalGlobe, Inc. reported financial results for the quarter ending 30 September 2015.

Arianespace has renewed the contracts with Telespazio for the maintenance of ground systems and launch services at the space base in Kourou (French Guyana) until 2019.

Orbital ATK, Inc. announced it recently signed a contract with Space Systems/Loral (SSL) to produce flight sets consisting of two propellant tanks for the SSL 1300 platform. The five-year contract continues a 27-year relationship with SSL for satellite fuel tanks produced by Orbital ATK’s Space Components Division in Commerce, California.