Satellite News

Telesat announced that, following a highly rigorous process involving leading satellite manufacturing companies, it has entered into a contract with the consortium of Thales Alenia Space and Maxar Technologies, the owner of SSL, to further develop system designs for Telesat’s LEO constellation.

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite has started its search for planets around nearby stars, officially beginning science operations on 25 July 2018.

MDA announced it has received a commitment from the UK Space Agency (UKSA) to develop space robotics capabilities in the United Kingdom. The agreement, valued at C$1.7 million, enhances MDA’s ability to lead a European consortium bidding on the first phase of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Space Servicing Vehicle (SSV) Robotics Program.

Astrobotic announced that the company has selected Dynetics of Huntsville, Alabama as the propulsion provider for its Peregrine Lunar Lander.

NASA awarded Raytheon’s Intelligence, Information and Services business US$59 million for additional work on NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System Common Ground System project. The changes are necessary to launch America’s next polar satellite, JPSS-2, in 2021.

NanoRacks successfully completed the 14th CubeSat Deployment mission from the company’s commercially developed platform on the International Space Station. Having released nine CubeSats into low-Earth orbit, this mission marks NanoRacks’ 185th CubeSat released from the Space Station, and 217th small satellite deployed by NanoRacks overall.

GomSpace A/S has signed a EUR400.000 contract with ESA for the first phase of the RACE project to deliver two 6-unit CubeSats for an IOD mission to demonstrate the capability of nano-satellite systems to perform close proximity operations such as rendezvous and docking, and close fly around manoeuvres.

ICESat-2 engineers at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California successfully finished the final ground-based test of the lasers, which are part of the satellite’s sole instrument called the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS). ICESat-2 is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg on 12 September 2018.