Satellite News

The European Space Agency has extended until 2017 the maintenance and development contract of the SMOS (Soil Moisture & Ocean Salinity) mission user segment, entrusted to Indra. The service could thereafter be extended for another two years, until 2019, depending on the programme’s development.

Galileo satellites 9 and 10 are functioning perfectly, ESA said, and the initial series of flight operations is continuing as part of LEOP – the critical launch and early orbit phase.

Saudi Arabia’s newest communications satellite, the Lockheed Martin-built Hellas-Sat-4/SaudiGeoSat-1, will not only be one of the most powerful ever built, it will be among the most agile thanks to new flexible payload technology, the company said.

Fibersat S.A. has signed a framework agreement with Arabsat for the acquisition of a HTS hosted payload in Ka Band on the upcoming Arabsat satellites with extensive coverage over African Markets. Fibersat is expected to commence operation in 2018.

Thales Alenia Space and Airbus Defence and Space have signed a feasibility study contract with CNES, the French space agency, for future French space-based civil and military Earth observation systems.

The ABS-3A satellite is now in full commercial use. The satellite started service on 31 August 2015 to serve the Americas, Africa, Europe and the Middle East regions.

The Italian Space Agency and NASA signed an agreement on elaboration and analysis of Earth Observation data. NASA will now be able to use Italian COSMO-SkyMed programme data.

China is planning to be the first country to land a lunar probe on the far side of the moon, a Chinese lunar probe scientist said.