Satellite News

Elements for Arianespace’s Ariane 5 mission in December have been delivered to the Spaceport in French Guiana for the heavy-lift launcher’s second flight at the service of Europe’s Galileo global satellite navigation system.

Virgin Orbit announced that commercial satellite developer Cloud Constellation Corporation has selected Virgin Orbit as its launch partner for a dozen satellites that will become the communications backbone of the SpaceBelt system.

Boeing and the Orbital Propulsion section of ArianeGroup are jointly developing a next-generation ion propulsion system based on the dual-mode Radio Frequency Ion Thruster (RIT) 2X subsystem.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft is on final approach to Saturn, following confirmation by mission navigators that it is on course to dive into the planet’s atmosphere on Friday, 15 September.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has awarded Teledyne e2v a EUR42million contract to produce high-end Charge Coupled Device (CCD) visible-light detectors for the PLATO (Planetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) mission.

Tesat-Spacecom GmbH announced that it will produce and market an interoperable version of its space based Laser Communication Terminal (LCT). The interoperable terminal will be able to communicate in both 1064 nm and 1550 nm wavelengths.