Satellite News

Thales Alenia Space, acting on behalf of the temporary association of companies with Finmeccanica – Telespazio, and the Italian Space Agency (ASI), on 30 July signed an addendum to the contract for the COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation (CSG) worth EUR182 million.

Raytheon has installed the first operational hardware for the Global Positioning System’s Next Generation Operational Control System, known as GPS OCX.

On 24 July, Vladimir Solntsev, Energia President, and Yuri Prokhorov, RSCC Director-General, signed an agreement to co-operate in the field of developing advanced communications and broadcasting satellite systems.

With its biggest orbit manoeuvre since 2006, NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) will prepare this week for the arrival of NASA’s next Mars lander, InSight, next year.

On 26 July at 0930 UTC, ESA handed control of Europe’s last Meteosat Second Generation weather satellite, MSG-4, to EUMETSAT.

Airbus Defence and Space has announced that the planned 67,000 km move of the Skynet 5A satellite over the Asia Pacific region is on track.

The Sentinel-5 Precursor platform and the TROPOMI instrument have been integrated together to form the satellite which will be leaving the UK for testing. Airbus Defence and Space will deliver the spacecraft to Intespace in Toulouse, France, for final system level testing. The spacecraft is scheduled to be launched in April 2016 by a Eurokot rocket from Plesetsk, Russia.

COM DEV International Ltd. has received an order to supply equipment for two commercial communications satellites. The initial Authorisation to Proceed (ATP) is valued at approximately C$11 million, and is expected to lead to a full contract in excess of C$45 million . COM DEV is scheduled to complete its work at its facilities in Cambridge by the end of fiscal 2016.