Satellite News

NASA’s preparing to send its fifth in a series of smartphone-controlled small spacecraft into orbit. PhoneSat 2.5 will ride into space as part of the SpaceX CRS-3 commercial cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. CRS-3 is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at the end of March (two weeks later than previously planned – cf. separate article in this issue).

Engineers have restored NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to full operations, following an unplanned swap of duplicate computers aboard the spacecraft on 9 March.

China’s troubled Yutu moon rover woke up again, though the mechanical troubles that have plagued it remain, the government said.

A new study by ESA’s Clean Space initiative – tasked with reducing the space industry’s environmental impacts on both Earth and space – aims to evaluate battery behaviour after a satellite shuts down, assessing the risk of breakup and ensuring full ‘passivation’.

11 March 2014 saw the beginning of Ekspress-AM5…Read more

Boeing has confirmed an order of three 702SP…Read more

Northrop Grumman Corporation has delivered 32…Read more

DZZ-HR, the Republic of Kazakhstan’s first Earth observation satellite, has left Airbus Defence and Space’s cleanrooms in Toulouse and is now on its way to the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou.