Satellite News

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: SES-10; Date: 30 March 2017, 2227 UTC; Launch site: Kennedy Space Center, USA. SES-10 became the first geostationary commercial satellite to ever launch on a rocket with a first-stage that had flown before.

The Progress Space Rocket Center has received the first four tested engines for the third stage of Soyuz rockets, CEO of Energomash rocket engine producer Igor Arbuzov was quoted as saying.

Astro Aerospace, a Northrop Grumman business, has been selected by Airbus Defence and Space to provide the nine meter L-band mesh reflectors for two Inmarsat 6 satellites.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. has received an Authorisation To Proceed from The Boeing Company for the provision of three Ku-Band communication subsystems that will replace ageing Ku-Band communication subsystems.

At NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the James Webb Space Telescope team completed the acoustic and vibration portions of environmental testing on the telescope.

The CanX-7 nanosatellite built by Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) has validated real-time detection and tracking of aircraft by satellite in low-Earth orbit. The next mission phase will begin in early May with deployment of drag sails developed by SFL to accelerate the deorbiting of small satellites as a practical solution to the space debris problem.

Aireon announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with Spanish Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP) ENAIRE. Through this agreement, ENAIRE will begin investigating the benefits of deploying space-based automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) technology in its airspace.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) completed its 50,000th orbit around Mars this week. The orbiter continues diverse science observations of Mars and communications-relay service for two active Mars rovers, Curiosity and Opportunity.