Satellite News

For its eighth launch of the year, and the second Soyuz lift-off from the Guiana Space Center (CSG) in French Guiana in 2018, Arianespace will orbit MetOp-C for EUMETSAT, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites.

Experts at the Baikonur space centre in Kazakhstan will dismantle the four strap-on boosters of the Soyuz-FG carrier rocket, which is scheduled for launch in November, and re-inspect them in order to avoid launch failures like that on 11 October, a Baikonur source was quoted as saying.

Aerojet Rocketdyne recently completed qualification testing for the enhanced reaction control thruster system for NASA’s Orion crew vehicle, helping to clear the way for the Lockheed Martin-built spacecraft’s second test flight, and first mission to cislunar space, called Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1).

NASA’s Kepler space telescope has run out of fuel needed for further science operations. NASA has decided to retire the spacecraft within its current, safe orbit, away from Earth. Kepler leaves a legacy of more than 2,600 planet discoveries from outside our solar system.

RemoveDEBRIS carried out a test of its onboard vision-based navigation (VBN) system on 28 October.

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc. has been awarded a contract by Sky Perfect JSAT Corporation (SJC) to design and build gateways for SJC’s new High Throughput Satellite (HTS) network. The JCSAT-18 HTS satellite, launching in 2019, will deliver broadband and mobile communication services to Asia Pacific and Eastern Russia.