Satellite News

Information Satellite Systems – Reshetnev Company announced the key operational milestones for manufacture of its new communications and broadcasting satellites Ekspress-80 and Ekspress-103.

The U.S. Air Force has decided to accept the first GPS III satellite even if some of its components may be flawed. The programme’s latest setback may affect a decision on whether to open the final 22 satellites to competition from Lockheed rivals Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Corp.

Boeing and NanoRacks LLC will partner to develop the first privately funded commercial airlock, enabling the United States to potentially triple the number of small satellites it can deploy from the International Space Station (ISS) during a single airlock cycle.

DigitalGlobe, Inc. announced that the WorldView-4 satellite successfully completed in-orbit testing and calibration and began serving its first direct access customer on 1 February. Additional direct access customers will be added to WorldView-4 service throughout 2017.

NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft has completed a short propulsive manoeuvre to refine its track toward a New Year’s Day 2019 flyby past 2014 MU69, a Kuiper Belt object (KBO) some 6.4 billion kilometers from Earth.

The new-series cargo transportation spacecraft Progress MS-03, developed and built by RSC Energia, has been successfully undocked from the International Space Station (ISS), de-orbited, and brought down in the Pacific Ocean as scheduled.

An experimental space junk collector designed to pull rubbish from the Earth’s orbit has run into trouble, scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) said.

PacSci EMC and Pyroalliance, a subsidiary of Airbus Safran Launchers, have been selected by RUAG Space AB to provide the Payload Release and Sequencing System (PRSS), a critical component to release satellites into space for a satellite constellation project.