Satellite News

Aerojet Rocketdyne, a subsidiary of Aerojet Rocketdyne Holdings, Inc., announced that assembly and testing of its AR1 advanced liquid rocket engine will take place at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has resumed full operations, following work by engineers to investigate why the rover put itself into a safe standby mode on 2 July. The rover team brought Curiosity out of safe mode on 9 July.

China will launch a Water Cycle Observation Mission (WCOM) satellite around 2020, to help in forecasting hydrological events including flood and drought, it was announced at the International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGRSS) 2016 in Beijing.

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd and Goonhilly Earth Station Ltd (GES) announced a new partnership to go beyond Earth’s orbit and provide a new model of low cost, high value, space exploration and science.

Eutelsat Communications said initiated the process of divesting its stake in Hispasat by exercising the put option granted in 2008 by Hispasat’s majority shareholder, the Abertis Group.

Thales Alenia Space has signed a definitive agreement to acquire RUAG’s opto-electronics business line. The transaction is subject to the usual closing conditions, and should be finalised by the end of the year.

A light version of Russia’s Proton rocket may be developed in 2018, Khrunichev Space Center Head Andrei Kalinovsky was quoted as saying.

The first manned transportation spacecraft of the new Soyuz MS series successfully docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on 9 July.