Satellite News

Arianespace has taken over full responsibility for the Vega rocket’s commercial exploitation at Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana.

NASA has awarded Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) wholly-owned subsidiary Orbital Technologies Corporation (ORBITEC) a competitive indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) task order contract to support the development, demonstration and verification of advanced propulsion system technologies under the Research and Technologies for Aerospace Propulsion Systems 2 (RTAPS2) for NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. has signed a multi-million dollar contract with DigitalGlobe Inc. to provide multiple international ground stations with upgrades to receive and process imagery and data directly from DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-4 satellite, in addition to the company’s existing satellite constellation.

Inmarsat and Turksat, the Turkish state-owned satellite operator, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore opportunities through the formation of a strategic partnership, initially focussed on the defence and aviation sectors.

Orbcomm Inc. announced that SpaceX is planning to conduct the static fire of its Falcon 9 rocket on 16 December 2015, which will launch eleven next generation OG2 satellites as part of Orbcomm’s second and final OG2 Mission at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

SES S.A. announced that SES-9 has safely arrived at Cape Canaveral, Florida, and is being processed for a mid-January 2016 launch on board SpaceX’s newly upgraded Falcon 9 rocket.

The launch of a Proton-M space rocket carrying a Garpun military satellite from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, originally scheduled for 10 December, has been postponed until 13 December for extra checks of the system that separates the satellite from the upper stage.

Thales Alenia Space has signed a contract with O3b Networks to deliver eight more satellites for their Medium Earth Orbit constellation.