Satellite News

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) performed an Earth swing-by operation of the Asteroid Explorer “Hayabusa2” on 3 December.

Following the completion of successful on-orbit testing, the U.S. Navy accepted the fourth Lockheed Martin-built Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite on 30 November.

Inmarsat announced that the third satellite in its new Global Xpress fleet, Inmarsat-5 F3 (I-5 F3), which was launched in August 2015, successfully completed all its in-orbit testing (IOT) and that the spacecraft is now fully operational and station-kept in its final orbital position.

Following the completion of in-orbit testing, Russia’s new communications and broadcasting satellite, Ekspress-AM8, has been commissioned as of 1 December 2015, at its nominal orbital slot, 14 degrees West.

Under an greement signed today, NOAA and EUMETSAT will establish and operate a Joint Polar System composed of EUMETSAT’s Metop-Second Generation (Metop-SG) satellites, NOAA’s JPSS satellites and shared ground systems and services.

Aerojet Rocketdyne has completed 12 additively manufactured production nozzle extensions for use aboard the Orion spacecraft. The nozzle extensions are part of Orion’s crew module reaction control system that Aerojet Rocketdyne is building for Lockheed Martin and NASA.

RSC Energia specialists have proceeded to a ground development testing of electric power transmission from one object to another using infrared laser radiation.

Two European instruments and four European contributions on two Russian instruments have been selected for the Russian-led science platform that will land on Mars as part of the ESA-Roskosmos ExoMars 2018 mission.