Satellite News

The NASA and Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM) will fly three U.S. Defense Department experimental hosted payloads when it launches in 2016. GPIM’s mission will validate a non-toxic fuel for future satellite missions, which could replace hydrazine and provide additional performance benefits.

Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc. announced that it successfully completed the development of the Cubesat Proximity Operations Demonstration (CPOD) vehicles and has officially received the approval to continue into the Vehicle Assembly Integration and Testing (AI&T) Phase.

NASA has chosen proposals from 10 universities to study CubeSat concepts that could enhance a Europa mission concept currently under study by NASA.

The Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), developed and built by Airbus Defence and Space and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), built by a European consortium led by the company, have successfully passed a 120 day cryogenic vacuum test campaign within the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).

The recently launched Boeing Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF satellite has completed on-orbit checkout.

The Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) instrument for NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R (GOES-R) completed development and testing and is now ready for integration with the spacecraft. The GOES-R satellite will be the first flight of this sophisticated lightning mapping instrument in geostationary orbit and will enable early predictions of intensifying storms and severe weather events.

Communications with the STEREO Behind spacecraft were interrupted on 1 October immediately after a planned reset of the spacecraft performed as part of a test of solar conjunction operations.

Airbus Defence and Space has been selected by ESA to design and build the ICI (Ice Cloud Imager) instruments to be launched on-board the future MetOp-SG (Second Generation) series satellites. The contract, worth a total of around EUR90 million, has been awarded to supply the ICI instruments for the MetOp-SG series of satellites.