Satellite News

Managers of NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover mission expect to approve resumption of rover arm movements as early as this week while continuing analysis of what appears to be an intermittent short circuit in the drill.

After studying the recent explosive break-up of a U.S. satellite, ESA space debris experts have concluded this event does not increase the collision risk to nearby ESA missions in any meaningful way.

The disintegration of the ageing U.S. military weather satellite DMSP-F13 may have been caused by an exploded battery. It was not the first incident of its kind.

The U.S. Air Force confirmed that the 20-year-old Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Flight 13 (DMSP-F13) suffered a “catastrophic event” on 3 February 2015.

The UK-led Beagle-2 Mars lander, which hitched a ride on ESA’s Mars Express mission and was lost on Mars since 2003, has been found in images taken by a NASA orbiter at the Red Planet. The pictures show that the probe did not crash land on Mars’ surface, as had been suspected by many.

Communications with the STEREO Behind spacecraft were interrupted on 1 October 2014 immediately after a planned reset of the spacecraft performed as part of a test of solar conjunction operations. There have been no successful communications since then, though attempts to recover the spacecraft continue. Initial indications are that a series of problems in the guidance and control system led to the anomaly.

Orbital Sciences Corporation announced comprehensive plans to fulfil its contract commitments under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) programme as well as to accelerate an upgrade of the Antares medium-class launcher’s main propulsion system. The recent crash of an Antares rocket was likely caused by a turbopump failure.

An initial investigation of the crash of Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo has shown that neither the rocket plane’s motor nor the vehicle itself exploded, and that the motor apparently had worked as planned. Instead, the plane disintegrated for reasons yet unknown.