Satellite News

Russia’s Ball Lens In The Space nanosatellite (BLITS) has apparently collided with orbital debris from the 2007 Chinese anti-satellite test.

The engineering model of the BepiColombo Mercury Transfer Module has completed a 12-day Sun-simulation test inside the Large Space Simulator at ESA’s test centre in the Netherlands, where it received a taste of the extreme solar heating it will experience when it enters orbit around the Solar System’s innermost planet in 2022.

Orbital Sciences Corporation announced that the satellites that the company designed and built marked 1,000 years of cumulative in-orbit operational experience. This achievement has been accomplished by only four other companies since the dawn of the space age.

Since returning to science data collection on 27 January 2013, after a 10-day precautionary wheel rest safe mode, NASA’s Kepler spacecraft has been performing well and continues to make science observations.

STRaND-1, the nanosatellite carrying a smartphone, has been declared operational in orbit by the mission team from the University of Surrey’s Surrey Space Centre (SSC) and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL).

Millennium Space Systems announced award of a contract from the United States Air Force (USAF) Space and Missile Center’s Defense Weather Systems Directorate for research on Systems and Spacecraft for space-based weather sensing.

An important milestone has been reached for ESA’s Sentinel-3 mission. The satellite platform has been delivered to the prime contractor in France where the instruments will be installed and tested along with the numerous components that make up this sophisticated new mission to monitor Earth.

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has transitioned from precautionary “safe mode” to active status on the path of recovery from a memory glitch last week. Resumption of full operations is anticipated by next week.