Satellite News

DigitalGlobe ’s WorldView-2 remote-sensing satellite has arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in anticipation of its launch on 6 October 2009.

Officials from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) unveiled a new ground station in Guam that will track spacecraft from JAXA’s upcoming Quasi-Zenith Satellite System.

Lockheed Martin announced that the second Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO-2) payload and associated ground systems have been certified for missile warning operations by U.S. Strategic Command.
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The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s Spacecraft Engineering Department and Remote Sensing Division announced it has successfully completed the System Requirements and Design Review (SRDR) for the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Microwave Imager/Sounder (MIS) programme.
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Upon starting an early morning communications pass on 22 August 2009, the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission operations team discovered the spacecraft had experienced an anomaly.
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JWST mirror backplane prototype passes space readiness tests
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MacDonald Dettwiler has signed a contract in excess of C$10 million (EUR6.5 million, US$9.3 million) with EADS Astrium, the prime contractor for Inmarsat’s Alphasat I-XL mission, to provide two advanced technology solutions for use on Alphasat, a telecommunications satellite.

One spacecraft has been removed from Russia’s navigation constellation, GLONASS.

Kazakhstan’s defunct KazSat-1 has recently been put into graveyard orbit under relatively odd circumstances.