Satellite News

The Dragon commercial cargo craft has completed a two day trip to the International Space Station after launching on 21 September.

Boeing will investigate hosting a scientific payload on a commercial satellite under a new six-month contract awarded by the Air Force’s Space and Missiles Systems Center (SMC).

Iridium Communications Inc. announced the completion of an extensive testing programme for qualification of its new solar panel design for the Iridium NEXT constellation. The array that powers the Iridium NEXT satellites, expected to begin launching in 2015, contains four solar panels and will span 9.4 meters when fully extended, developing more than 2 kilowatts of power over a demanding charging cycle in Iridium’s low Earth orbit.

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft successfully entered Mars’ orbit at 1524 UTC on 21 September 2014. MAVEN is the first spacecraft dedicated to exploring the tenuous upper atmosphere of Mars.

The 440 Newton Liquid Apogee Motor (LAM) of India’s Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, last fired on 1 December 2013, was successfully fired for a duration of 3.968 seconds at 0900 UTC on 22 September 2014.

India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) spacecraft will enter Martian orbit on 24 September for scientific exploration of the red planet after a 300-day voyage through inter-planetary space.

The GOES-R Satellite System Module and Core Module subassemblies were successfully mated and now form the GOES-R spacecraft. This is an important milestone in the development of the satellite, as it merges together the elements that form both the “brain” and the “body” of the satellite that will be launched in early 2016.

NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) spacecraft is nearing its scheduled 22 September (UTC) insertion into Martian orbit after completing a 10-month interplanetary journey of 707 million km.