Satellite News

COM DEV International Ltd. announced that it has been awarded a C$5.4 million contract to begin work on Phase B of the Canadian Space Agency’s Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM).

GeoEye, Inc. announced the start of commercial operations for its new GeoEye-1 Earth-imaging satellite.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said it has re-ignited the ion engine of its Hayabusa asteroid sample return probe.

Arabsat has selected the consortium of Astrium and Thales Alenia Space to build and deliver in orbit two new satellites, Arabsat 5C and Arabsat 6B. Both will be launched by Arianespace.
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U.S. Air Force accepts first SBIRS HEO system for operations
NASA Partners With Venture Capital Firm

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. said it has successfully delivered the RapidEye information solution to its customer, RapidEye AG in Germany, thereby enabling commencement of commercial operations.
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Update: Germany’s latest spy satellite launched from Plesetsk
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U.S. Navy shoots down defunct spy satellite
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Romanian Satellite Provider Offers Interactive Programming
Lockheed completes GPS III system design review

Japan’s Broadcasting Satellite System Corporation (B-SAT) has selected Integral Systems to deliver a turnkey satellite control system for the BSAT-3b and BSAT-3c satellites, scheduled for launch in 2010 and 2011, respectively.
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Dawn to enter final pre-launch processing
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Ten years ago: first GPS IIR satellite launched
Optus Orders A Third Satellite

The Cassini spacecraft will swap to a backup set of propulsion thrusters in mid-March owing to degradation in the performance of the current set of thrusters.
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Northrop Grumman Corporation said it successfully demonstrated command and control of a Global Positioning System (GPS) IIR-M satellite using its Next Generation Operational Control Segment (OCX) engineering model.