Satellite News

After successfully completing overall system tests at RUAG Space, four high-precision adjustable thruster pointing mechanisms were delivered to Airbus Defence and Space (ADS) for pre-integration on the thruster platform of ESA’s BepiColombo spacecraft.

Intelsat S.A. has signed a 15-year service agreement with African pay TV provider MultiChoice on a new satellite to be added to the Intelsat network.

The second of five instruments that will fly aboard NOAA’s Joint Polar Satellite System-1 (JPSS-1) successfully completed its pre- shipment review. The Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite (OMPS) instrument will be hosted on the upcoming JPSS-1 satellite mission scheduled to launch in early 2017 and is currently flying on board the NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite.

Following the completion of the heat shield installation, Lockheed Martin has stacked the Orion crew module atop of the service module. The stacking took place inside the Final Assembly and System Test (FAST) cell inside the Operations and Checkout facility at Kennedy Space Center.

The Mexican Ministry of Communications and Transportation (SCT) and Boeing are a step closer to enhancing Mexico’s mobile communications capabilities for government applications with the completion of the second Mexsat 702HP (high power) geomobile satellite.

After more than 13 years of helping predict weather and climate patterns and save lives in search and rescue operations, NOAA announced it has turned off the NOAA-16 Polar-Orbiting Environmental Satellite (POES). It was one of NOAA’s longest operating spacecraft, which have a planned lifespan of three to five years.

Northrop Grumman Corporation has been awarded a contract from the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) to provide space inertial reference systems for the GEO-KOMPSAT-2 space satellite programme.

Three NASA science instruments aboard the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft, which is set to become the first to orbit a comet and land a probe on its nucleus, are beginning observations and sending science data back to Earth.