Satellite News

Lockheed Martin has completed the major assembly of Hellas-Sat-4/SaudiGeoSat-1 and has shipped the communications satellite to its Sunnyvale, California facility to undergo environmental testing.

Ball Aerospace has been selected by the U.S. Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) to deliver the next-generation operational environmental satellite system, Weather System Follow-on – Microwave (WSF-M), for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD).

Thales Alenia Space (Thales 67 %, Leonardo 33 %), with ELV (European Launch Vehicle – 70% Avio SpA, 30% ASI) as co-contractor, has signed a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA) for the engineering and preliminary development of the automated reusable Space Rider transportation system, designed for deployment by the new Vega C light launcher into low Earth orbit (LEO).

The EchoStar 105/SES-11 satellite has been successfully positioned at the 105 degrees West orbital location and is now fully operational and able to serve the video and enterprise markets in the US.

Orbital ATK, Inc. announced that its stockholders overwhelmingly approved the merger agreement providing for the proposed acquisition of Orbital ATK by Northrop Grumman Corporation at a special meeting of stockholders held on 29 November 2017.

A Soyuz-2.1b launch vehicle with Fregat upper stage that lifted off from the Vostochny cosmodrome apparently failed to deliver its payload, the Meteor-M No.2-1 polar-orbiting weather satellite and 18 small satellites, into orbit.

Iridium Communications Inc. announced that all 10 Iridium NEXT satellites for its fourth launch are now in processing at SpaceX’s west coast launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The work continues to prepare for launch from the Baikonur launch site the Angosat spacecraft built by RSC Energia (a part of State Corporation Roskosmos) under a contract with the Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technologies of the Republic of Angola.