Satellite News

A Proton/Briz M is to launch AsiaSat 9 for Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company Limited (AsiaSat), Hong Kong, on 29 September at 1852 UTC from Baikonur Cosmodrome.

ViaSat Inc. has completed the Critical Design Review (CDR) milestones for the ViaSat-3 class spacecraft. The payload CDR was successfully completed last week, and when combined with the successful bus CDR, conducted with Boeing in mid-August, ViaSat and Boeing are now moving forward with building, integrating and testing the first two satellites.

Thales Alenia Space has recently been awarded one of three competitive studies funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) to lead the design definition of the Payload Module (PLM) for SMILE (Solar Wind Magnetospheric Ionospheric Link Explorer).

NASA’s asteroid sample return spacecraft successfully used Earth’s gravity to slingshot itself on a path toward the asteroid Bennu, for a rendezvous next August.

China’s first cargo spacecraft, Tianzhou-1, has been deorbited.

ASTROSCALE Japan Inc. and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency have signed a joint research agreement regarding the removal of space debris.

The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument, designed and built by Ball Aerospace for NASA, has completed spectrometer testing and verification.

SES, EchoStar Corp., and Airbus Defence and Space announced that the new EchoStar 105/SES-11 spacecraft, built by Airbus, has been shipped from the Airbus facilities in Toulouse, France, to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for its forthcoming launch by SpaceX in October.