Satellite News

Boeing is to build the Nusantara Lima Satellite, which will be launched in 2023 and will augment the capacity of SATRIA-1, for Indonesia’s PSN Group. With these 2 VHTS, PSN Group will be one of the biggest satellite capacity providers in Asia with approximately 330 Gbps covering Indonesia and its surrounding areas.

Related posts:
Stratos to be acquired by CIP Canada; Inmarsat has call option
Loral Space & Communications Inc. results Q3 2009
Iridium Communications Inc. results Q3 2009
Relativity to build new autonomous rocket factory

The Tomorrow Companies Inc. (“Tomorrow.io”) announced plans to introduce microwave sounders as an additional sensor to its planned satellite constellation. The addition of microwave sounders to the company’s constellation of radar-equipped weather satellites would create the first commercial multi-sensor weather satellite system owned and operated by a private company.

The structural thermal model (STM) of the payload module (PLM) of the SMILE (Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) mission has successfully passed its Delivery Review Board (DRB). The SMILE STM payload is now on its way to Luxembourg from where it will start its journey to Shanghai. On arrival it will be integrated onto the Chinese platform, to complete the qualification of the satellite.

Spire Global, Inc. announced a new space-as-a-service agreement with NorthStar Earth & Space, an Earth & Space Information Services Platform, to build a constellation of satellites focused on space-situational awareness (SSA) and debris monitoring. The first award within the contract is for three satellites, with pre-agreed options for NorthStar to scale the constellation to dozens of satellites as their business operational needs grow.

Following the completion of critical mirror alignment steps, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team expects that Webb’s optical performance will be able to meet or exceed the science goals the observatory was built to achieve.

Astranis has now completed all major tests necessary for its first MicroGEO spacecraft to be ready to ship to the launch site, including vibration and vibroacoustic tests, final solar array and antenna deployment tests, propulsion system tests, software tests, and electrical checkouts. This follows a successful thermal-vacuum, or TVAC, test campaign that was concluded late last year.

Terran Orbital Corporation announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc., was awarded a contract by Lockheed Martin to build 42 satellites for the U.S. Space Development Agency’s Tranche 1 Transport Layer, the Initial Warfighting Capability Tranche of the National Defense Space Architecture (NDSA).

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) retired two Space Tracking and Surveillance System (STSS) demonstration satellites on 8 March 2022, ending an experiment that demonstrated that a space layer can significantly enhance the Missile Defense System (MDS).