Satellite News

South Korean newspapers have reported that their neighbour to the north has completed development of a new reconnaissance satellite, the first that will enable North Korea to transmit data to Earth.

SES-14, the first ever all-electric satellite in the 4-tonne class, has left the Airbus Defence and Space clean rooms in Toulouse. The spacecraft will be delivered to French Guiana for its launch from Kourou CSG (Guiana Space Center), by Ariane 5, in January 2018.

NASA has selected two finalist concepts for a robotic mission planned to launch in the mid-2020s: a comet sample return mission and a drone-like rotorcraft that would explore potential landing sites on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.

After four months at the Korean Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) test facilities in Daejeon, South Korea, during which intensive testing was performed by a joint team of KARI and Airbus Defence and Space, the GOCI-II ocean colour imaging instrument has been delivered to the customer.

Boeing has been awarded a contract modification for services required to ensure continued Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) satellite operations and logistics sustainment support.

Orbital ATK announced that its “S. S. Gene Cernan” Cygnus spacecraft successfully completed its eighth cargo supply mission to the International Space Station under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-1) contract.

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has shipped the RemoveDEBRIS spacecraft to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch to the International Space Station (ISS) inside a Dragon capsule on board the SpaceX CRS-14 re-supply mission, a service provided through supply agent, Nanoracks.

Harris Corporation delivered the navigation payload for the fourth GPS III Space Vehicle (SV04) to Lockheed Martin on 29 October. Harris delivered two payloads in 2017 and is committed to delivering four more in 2018.