Satellite News

The Dawn spacecraft has resumed normal ion thrusting after the thrusting unexpectedly stopped and the spacecraft entered safe mode on 11 September. That anomaly occurred shortly before a planned communication with NASA’s Deep Space Network that morning. The spacecraft was not performing any special activities at the time.

The newest Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellite, built by Lockheed Martin, was accepted for operations by U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) on 19 August. This acceptance formally adds DMSP Flight-19 to the existing DMSP constellation. The satellite constellation provides weather data and forecasting information to civilian and military users.

NASA has awarded a sole source contract modification to Exelis, Inc., Geospatial Systems, of Fort Wayne, Indiana, for the Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) Instrument for flight on the Joint Polar Satellite System-2 (JPSS-2) mission.

The fifth and sixth Galileo satellites have been in a safe state since 28 August, fully under control from ESA’s centre in Darmstadt, Germany, despite having been released on 22 August into lower and elliptical orbits instead of the expected circular orbits.

Orbcomm Inc. announced that it has launched commercial service for its first six next generation OG2 satellites.

NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity’s Flash file system was successfully reformatted on Sol 3773 (4 September 2014).

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has been selected by Laser Light Communications, LLC to be its prime contractor for the first global, all-optical commercial satellite system. Space-based laser communication provides a new way to move vast amounts of information around the globe efficiently and with greater resiliency.

Exelis announced the second flight unit of the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) successfully completed environmental testing and is six months ahead of schedule for delivery to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). ABI is the primary payload for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R (GOES-R) series of weather satellites.