Satellite News

GMV has been awarded a contract by Arabsat to provide a complete Satellite Control Center (SCC) for its existing and upcoming fleet of satellites.

After years of delay, Russia plans to deploy this year the first satellite of its new constellation replacing the space component of the early warning system, Russian media reported. It will also double as an emergency communication satellite.

NASA has issued a Request for Information (RFI) to investigate the possibility of using commercial Mars-orbiting satellites to provide telecommunications capabilities for future robotic missions to the Red Planet.

Space Systems/Loral (SSL) announced that it was one of 14 companies qualified by the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) to compete for work with U.S. Government agencies to host government payloads on commercial satellites.

SES Government Solutions (SES GS) said it is one of fourteen awardees granted a share of a contract worth in total a maximum of US$$495 million under the Hosted Payload Solutions (HoPS) Program.

Thales Alenia Space announced that it has signed a contract with the leading telecom services company in Indonesia, PT. Telekomunikasi Indonesia TbK (Telkom), to build a new telecommunications satellite.

Space Systems/Loral (SSL) announced that it was selected by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to integrate the flight hardware for a new capability designed to carry small science and technology missions to space on its geostationary (GEO) satellite platform.

The PPS 1350-E plasma thruster from Snecma (Safran) has completed a series of endurance tests totalling 6,700 hours of operation, for a total impulse of 3.4 million Newton-seconds (MNs), a world record for this type of thruster.