Satellite News

On 22 October 2001, Proba was launched as a technology demonstrator on a two-year mission within ESA’s General Support Technology Programme. Its nominal lifetime was meanwhile extended to serve as an Earth Observation mission.

Today marks the first anniversary of the beginning of the Rapid Scanning Service (RSS) on EUMETSAT’s Meteosat-8 geostationary weather satellite, which for one year now has been successfully delivering this vital service in support of Nowcasting of severe weather events.
Other Posts:Harris awarded continuation contract for satellite control networkAlcatel-Lucent Begins OperationsNew launch date for MetOp-A setHamilton Sundstrand, P&W Rocketdyne join Ball’s Ares I teamSpace Foundation publishes ITAR white paperFirst AEHF satellite ready for testingLoral, MHR to modify transaction to comply with NASDAQ rulesJim Halsell joins ATK as Vice President and Program Manager

10 July 2012 will mark the 50th anniversary of the launch of Telstar 1, the world’s first active communications satellite. The articles that can be expected over the next few days will likely focus on technical aspects. But the implications were by no means of just a technical nature. The following is based on material from Wikipedia, the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, company press releases, and of course the Sat-ND archive. It is by no means the complete story (that would easily fill a book) but may be interesting anyway.Other Posts:Intelsat capacity for BBC digital switch overProgress M-58 completes docking with ISSGlobalstar CEO Dalton to retireIntegral Systems results FY 2006Alcatel SA results Q3 2006Chandrayaan-1 officially declared lostGeoEye orders new imaging satellite from Lockheed MartinIntelsat, Ltd. results Q3 2007