Satellite News

Millennium Space Systems announced that it has shipped out their first set of RWA-1000 reaction wheels to commercial customer SSL in Palo Alto, CA.

Lockheed Martin has successfully integrated the propulsion core and payload module for the fourth Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) satellite nearly five months ahead of schedule.

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is approaching orbit insertion at the dwarf planet Ceres. Dawn will be the first mission to successfully visit a dwarf planet when it enters orbit around Ceres on Friday, 6 March.

LISA Pathfinder’s propulsion and science modules are leaving the UK for the last time. Airbus Defence and Space will ship the two modules to IABG (Industrie Anlagen Betriebs Gesellschaft), near Munich in Germany, for final system level testing. The spacecraft is scheduled to be launched later this year by a European Vega rocket from Kourou, French Guiana.

Eutelsat 115 West B, the first all-electric satellite for Eutelsat Communications is scheduled for launch by SpaceX using the Falcon 9 rocket on 1 March between 03.49 and 04.34 UTC. Built by Boeing Defense and Space, Eutelsat’s latest satellite arrived in Cape Canaveral on 25 January.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. announced that it has signed a contract valued in excess of C$29 million with Aselsan Electronic Industries Inc. (Aselsan), to provide Ku-Band payload equipment for a communications satellite subsystem.

The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory successfully deployed the mesh reflector and boom aboard the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) spacecraft, a key milestone on its mission to provide global measurements of soil moisture.

The Ekspress-AM7 satellite was delivered to Baikonur last week. The launch of a Proton-M/Briz-M with the Ekspress-AM7 satellite on board is scheduled for 19 March 2015.