Satellite News

Iridium Communications Inc. announced the completion of the first five flight main mission antennas (MMAs) for the Iridium NEXT constellation.

Orbital’s Cygnus spacecraft successfully completed its rendezvous and approach manoeuvres with the International Space Station (ISS) and was grappled and berthed with the station by the Expedition 40 astronaut crew earlier this morning.

Surrey Satellite Technology US LLC (SST-US) has been awarded a firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract under the Hosted Payload Solutions (HoPS) programme from the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center (SMC) Contracting Directorate.

Engineering and technology group SENER has reached an agreement with the European Space Agency (ESA) for the prime contractor role on phases C/D and E1 of the Proba-3 space mission.

OHB subsidiary LuxSpace has signed a contract with ESA for the manufacturing of two micro satellites.

After a month surfing in and out of the atmosphere of Venus down to just 130 km from the planet’s surface, ESA’s Venus Express is about to embark on a 15 day climb up to 460 km.

Lockheed Martin has successfully completed environmental testing of the U.S. Navy’s third Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite. It recently cleared thermal vacuum trials, which validate performance in simulated space conditions, and the satellite is now in final check out.

The Clouds and Earth’s Radiant Energy Systems (CERES) instrument for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) recently arrived at Ball Aerospace.