Satellite News

The first-ever mission to demonstrate an asteroid deflection technique for planetary defence has moved into the final design and assembly phase, following NASA’s approval on 16 August.

With Europe’s Galileo constellation in space now expanded to 26 navigation satellites – and Galileo Initial Services available to users world-wide – the infrastructure on the ground that controls them is undergoing a corresponding expansion.

SES announced that the high-powered SES-14 satellite, positioned at 47.5 degrees West, is now serving Latin America, the Caribbean, North America, North Atlantic and West Africa.

Thales Alenia Space announced to have signed contracts with the European Space Agency (ESA) for the Phase A/B1 studies of two elements of LOP-G (Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway), formerly known as the Deep Space Gateway.

NASA has awarded a contract to General Atomics of San Diego, California, for services required to host the agency’s Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) instrument on a commercial satellite in low-Earth orbit.

Viasat Inc. announced the first ViaSat-3 payload module structure, built by Boeing, arrived at Viasat’s Tempe, Arizona facility. With the initial payload module structure now at Viasat’s facility, the company can begin payload integration and testing for the first ViaSat-3 class satellite that is scheduled to provide broadband service over the Americas, starting in 2020.

The integration of Sentinel-6A, the first of two satellites to continue measuring sea levels from 2020, has reached a new milestone and its critical phase: the propulsion module has been “mated” with the main structure of the satellite at Airbus.

SSL announced it has been selected by NASA to study the feasibility of habitable space platforms for building commercial satellites and how they might unlock new capabilities and business paradigms.