Satellite News

DigitalGlobe, Inc. announced its WorldView-1 satellite has completed a planned 18-month-long transition from a morning orbit to an afternoon orbit, improving customers’ ability to detect, see, and understand change that occurs on our planet within a single day.

Russia will publicly release its own database of Earth orbiting satellites, Viktor Shilin, head of the Russian delegation at the 59th session of the UN Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, told the Russian newspaper Izvestia.

SES S.A. said it is pushing satellite innovation further to create new services and applications for customers. The future of satellite service is described in the new White Paper “Satellite Evolution Sparks a Service Revolution,” which focuses on the upcoming customer applications of new satellite technology, including Digital Signal Processing, satellite modularity, and satellite life extension services.

Thales Alenia Space, the joint venture between Thales (67%) and Leonardo-Finmeccanica (33%), announced that it has signed a contract with RSCC (Russian Satellite Communication Company) to supply payloads for the Ekspress-80 and Ekspress-103 communications satellites.

RSC Energia specialists have successfully completed the manufacturing and developmental testing of the additional equipment to be installed in the Multipurpose Laboratory Module (MLM) Nauka for the International Space Station (ISS). The module’s launch, however, has slipped another six months.

Engineers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio and Orbital ATK in Dulles, Virginia successfully conducted the first remote Spacecraft Fire Experiment, or Saffire I, carried inside an Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo vehicle that departed the International Space Station on 14 June.

The delayed second part of the European-Russian ExoMars mission has received a EUR77 million cash injection, the European Space Agency said.

Construction of the Sentinel-2B optical satellite is complete. The spacecraft is the second of its type from Airbus Defence and Space, providing the “Colour Vision” of Europe’s Earth observation programme Copernicus, a joint project of the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA).