Satellite News

Reza Rousta Azad, president of the Sharif…Read more

The Ball Aerospace & Technologies-built Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft will emerge from its two-year hibernation next month to resume its near-Earth object NEOWISE asteroid hunting mission.

Two meteorological payloads (Imaging System, Atmospheric Sounder) aboard India’s INSAT-3D have recently been activated. Performance of payloads are satisfactory and the preliminary images received are of good quality, ISRO said. The cameras are undergoing testing and commissioning phase.

The next satellite in the TDRS programme, TDRS-L, completed performance testing at the Boeing satellite facility in El Segundo and is ready for shipment to Kennedy Space Center, Florida, later this year in advance of a 2014 launch.

On 11 August, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope entered an extended phase of its mission — a deeper study of the high-energy cosmos. This is a significant step toward the science team’s planned goal of a decade of observations, ending in 2018.

NASA has accepted ownership of its newest Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) from Boeing after successfully completing in orbit testing. TDRS-K, will be renamed TDRS-11 upon entry into service.

Following months of analysis and testing, the team is ending its attempts to restore the spacecraft to full working order as the recent pointing test proved unsuccessful. On 8 August, engineers conducted a system-level performance test using Reaction Wheel 1 (RW1), 2 and 3. RW1 and 3 are the “good” wheels that have shown no signs of degradation.

After more than 10 years of service, NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-12 spacecraft is being retired.