Satellite News

Raytheon said it has reached another milestone in its development of the U.S. Air Force’s Global Positioning System Next Generation Operational Control System, known as GPS OCX.

International Launch Services (ILS) and Eutelsat have announced the signing of two Proton launch contracts for the 2018-2020 period.

Mission managers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory are evaluating an alternate way to collect and process science data from the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) instrument on NASA’s Aura spacecraft following the age-related failure of a critical instrument component.

In coordination with its NASA customer, Orbital ATK has rescheduled the launch of the OA-5 CRS mission for 15 October (UTC).

DigitalGlobe, Inc. announced the WorldView-4 satellite launch has been delayed due to ongoing efforts to restore and test infrastructure at Vandenberg Air Force Base following last month’s wildfires.

The commands that will govern the Schiaparelli lander’s descent and touchdown on Mars were uploaded to ESA’s ExoMars spacecraft, enroute to the Red Planet. The Trace Gas Orbiter has been carrying the Schiaparelli entry, descent and landing demonstrator since launch on 14 March. Upon arrival on 19 October, Schiaparelli will test the technology needed for Europe’s 2020 rover to land, while its parent craft brakes into an elliptical orbit around Mars.

A state commission has approved 19 October (UTC) as a new date for the postponed launch of the Soyuz MS-02 manned spacecraft to the International Space Station, Russia’s Roskosmos state space corporation said.

The Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft is undergoing preparations in the Horizontal Integration Facility at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility for a launch on 14 October (UTC) on the company’s Antares rocket.