Satellite News

Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company Limited (AsiaSat) said it was once again voted as the “Best Asian Satellite Carrier” in the 2007 Telecom Asia Awards, presented by Telecom Asia Group at a ceremony held in Hainan Island, China on 16 April.

“An Air Force Academy built satellite is finally sending signals to Earth, and cadets think they can fix software glitches that hamper Falcon-Sat III. … Communications with the satellite were established March 23, and cadets have since been able to maintain contact and are sure they can send up software repairs that will make the experimental orbiter fully functional.” (Colorado Springs Gazette)

“Ninety years after he expounded his famous theory, a $700m Nasa probe has proved that the universe behaves as he said. Now the race is on to show that the other half of relativity also works” (The Guardian)

“The first result from the Gravity Probe B satellite confirms a prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity to a precision of better than 1%. ‘For the first time, we have seen one of Einstein’s effects directly,’ says mission leader Francis Everitt of Stanford University in California, US.” (NewScientist.com news service)

“At the Space Foundation’s National Space Symposium held this week in Colorado Springs, Colorado, top U.S. military brass repeatedly brought up the January 11 Chinese anti-satellite (ASAT) test. … Interesting tidbits of news were that the direct ascent Chinese ASAT was done from a mobile ground platform and that the successful test followed three previous tries.” (LiveScience.com)

U.S. “House and Senate appropriators have pushed back against NASA’s proposed termination of a planned 2011 robotic lunar lander mission, directing the agency to spend $20 million this year to continue work on a follow-on to the 2008 Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.” (Space News)

“One significant fact about space technology in this decade is the way that developing nations, such as China and India, have been able to use it to enable them to accelerate already impressive rates of economic growth. Other nations, such as Nigeria and Algeria, are following suit by buying and operating small spacecraft from Surrey Satellite Technology Limited in order to jumpstart their national space expertise. … Where space technology has not lived up to its promise is in the very poor and extremely underdeveloped nations.” (Space Review)

Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Astro Aerospace business unit has been recognised by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and The Royal Aeronautical Society for design and on-orbit performance of its deployable systems on two separate space programmes.