Satellite News

The 11th Arianespace mission of 2016 has been given the go-ahead for lift-off from the Spaceport in French Guiana on 21 December, carrying the Star One D1 and JCSAT-15 satellites for deployment into geostationary transfer orbit.

Lockheed Martin has completed assembly of NOAA’s GOES-S weather satellite and is now beginning critical mechanical and environmental testing of the spacecraft.

The James Webb Space Telescope is undergoing testing to make sure the spacecraft withstands the harsh conditions of launch, and to find and remedy all possible concerns before it is launched from French Guiana in 2018.

Inmarsat has successfully completed the first flight trials for Iris Precursor, a ground-breaking project to enhance and modernise air traffic management over European airspace.

Rocket: Atlas V 431; Payload: EchoStar XIX (aka Jupiter 2); Date: 18 December 2016, 1913 UTC; Launch site: Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, USA. EchoStar XIX deployed its solar arrays on schedule and is successfully performing post-launch manoeuvres according to plan.

Millennium Space Systems said it has completed the development of and shipped its first ALTAIR satellite, a pre-production pathfinder spacecraft designed to demonstrate advanced avionics, guidance & control, additive manufacturing, power systems, RF communications and onboard processing technologies.

ViaSat Inc. and Boeing, announced that Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for the first two ViaSat-3 class satellites was completed on 16 November 2016.

OneWeb Ltd., which is building a constellation of satellites to enable global broadband access, and SoftBank Group Corp. announced that OneWeb has secured US$1.2 billion in funded capital from SoftBank and existing investors, of which US$1 billion will come from SoftBank.