Satellite News

The first Galileo Second Generation hardware has begun testing, with test versions of the satellites’ navigation payloads undergoing evaluation by Airbus Defence and Space at their Ottobrunn facility in Germany and by Thales Alenia Space at ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in the Netherlands.

Rocket Lab announced it has concluded an extensive review into the cause of the anomaly that resulted in the loss of its “Running Out Of Toes” mission launched on 15 May 2021. With the root cause of the issue identified and corrective measures now in place, Electron will be back on the pad for the next mission from Launch Complex 1 later this month.

Rocket: Chang Zheng 2C; Payload: three Yaogan-30-10 satellites, Tianqi-15; Date: 19 July 2021, 0019 UTC; Launch site: Xichang Satellite Launch Center, China. The spacecraft were deployed into approx. 590 km x 601 km x 35.00 degrees orbits.

GHGSat has completed the second tranche of a funding round initiated in 2020, thereby closing its total Series B funding at US$45 million. The company has raised more than US$70 million since its inception in 2011.

Measat Global Berhad announced that while Measat has maintained continuous telemetry and command control of the Measat-3 satellite since the previously reported anomaly on 21 June, an in-depth investigation is still being conducted with Boeing Satellite Systems to determine the root cause of the anomaly.

NASA has returned the science instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to operational status, and the collection of science data will now resume. This will be the first science data collected since the payload computer experienced a problem on 13 June, which placed the instruments in a safe configuration and suspended science operations.

The Russian government has given the green light to negotiations with Northrop Grumman on sales of Russia’s RD-181 rocket engines, according to a decree signed by Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.