Satellite News

The inquiry into the crash-landing of the ExoMars Schiaparelli module has concluded that conflicting information in the onboard computer caused the descent sequence to end prematurely.

An electrical short circuit may have led to the recent failure of the launch of the world’s smallest rocket capable of placing a satellite into orbit, JAXA said.

Japan’s HTV-6, or “Kounotori-6”, supply ship re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere at 1506 UTC on 5 February, more than a week after leaving the International Space Station. The onboard Kounotori Integrated Tether Experiment (KITE), designed to clear space junk from the Earth’s orbit, ended in failure.

Russian prosecutors have wrapped up a criminal case against four employees of Energia Rocket and Space Corporation complicit in the crash of a Proton booster with three GLONASS satellites and sent the case files to a court of law.

India will launch one of its back up navigation satellites this year as a replacement to IRNSS-1A satellite, whose three atomic clocks have failed, ISRO said. The agency denied the existence of similar problems with the rubidium atomic clocks in another navigation satellite.

Boeing and the U.S. Air Force recently signed a Global Positioning System (GPS) sustainment agreement under which Boeing will support GPS IIA and IIF satellites currently on orbit for the next five years.

At least one atomic clock onboard a satellite in India’s INRSS regional navsat constellation has failed, NDTV reports. The system remains functional, though.

Europe’s Galileo navigation satellite system is suffering from clocks failing onboard a number of satellites at an alarming rate. None of the 18 spacecraft launched so far had to be declared a total loss, but the project may experience further delays as the cause of the failures is being investigated, ESA director general Jan Woerner was quoted as saying.