Satellite News

A Proton M launch vehicle, utilising a 5-burn Briz M mission design, is to lift off from Pad 39 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with the Amazonas 5 satellite on board at 1923 UTC on 11 September.

Brazil’s Embratel has announced its 12th satellite, the largest ever made for the company.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. announced that it has signed a multi-million dollar contract with Boeing Satellite Systems, Inc. to supply a communication antenna subsystem for the Amos-17 satellite.

Iridium Communications Inc. announced that it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Magnitude Space, an emerging small satellite company. The signing of this MoU signals Iridium’s interest in exploring collaborative partnerships with complementary NewSpace players, particularly those in the SmallSat low-power arena.

According to the 24th edition of Euroconsult’s report, Satellite Communications & Broadcasting Markets Survey, due to be published later in September, the FSS industry is in the midst of unprecedented change, with the dramatic downsizing of traditional pricing leading to decreasing revenues for many in the sector and the possibility of major restructuring or consolidation on the horizon.

Rocket: Falcon 9; Payload: OTV-5 (X-37B); Date: 7 September 2017, 1400 UTC; Launch site: Kennedy Space Center, USA. The Boeing-built X-37B spaceplane arrived in orbit shortly after lift-off. No orbital parameters were released.

ULA is expected to confirm plans to buy five previously banned Russian rocket engines by late September, the Kommersant business daily reported, citing unidentified sources close to the Russian engine manufacturer Energomash.

AZUR SPACE SOLAR POWER GmbH announced that it has been awarded a Multi-Year, Long-Term Purchase Agreement (LTPA) for high-efficiency, multi-junction space solar cells by Space Systems Loral (SSL) to support SSL’s next generation solar arrays.