Satellite News

SES S.A. announced that the SES-8 satellite has been successfully co-positioned with SES’s NSS-6 satellite at the orbital location of 95 degrees East and is now fully operational to serve the Asia-Pacific region.

An infrared camera designed with University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin know-how, which will form the heart of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), has joined three other instruments at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to be mounted in the nascent telescope structure.

The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter module consisting of the spacecraft structure, thermal control and propulsion systems was handed over by OHB System to Thales Alenia Space France at a ceremony held in Bremen, Germany, today.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has successfully completed the SpaceWire Inter-operability Test for the Joint Polar Satellite System-1 (JPSS-1) satellite and has begun spacecraft bus integration. Ball will power-up the spacecraft for the first time later this month as build progresses toward an early 2017 launch.

NASA’s Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer, or LADEE, observatory has been approved for a 28-day mission extension. The spacecraft is now expected to impact the lunar surface on or around 21 April 2014, depending on the final trajectory.

SES S.A. announced that the Astra 2E satellite enters into commercial service in the orbital arc of 28.2/28.5 degrees East on 1 February 2014. The satellite was launched on board an ILS Proton launch vehicle from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on 30 September 2013.

Thales Alenia Space has delivered its third Pressurised Cargo Module (PCM) to Orbital Sciences Corporation for integration in the Cygnus spacecraft that will transport cargo to the International Space Station (ISS).

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. announced that the Sapphire satellite developed by MDA for Canada’s Department of National Defence (DND) has completed its commissioning and is fully transitioned into operations as a contributing sensor to the U.S. Space Surveillance Network.