Satellite News

China’s first lunar probing satellite, Chang’e-1, adjusted its operating orbit to avoid a power shortage during an upcoming moon eclipse.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. announced that its Montreal operation has been awarded an advanced technology multi-million dollar contract by Thales Alenia Space.

Australian telecommunications provider Optus said its Optus D2 satellite, which was launched on 5 October last year, has been made operational after completing a series of in-orbit tests.

SES Sirius announced that the Sirius 4 communications satellite is now in operation and has taken over all transmissions from Sirius 2 and Sirius 3. Since it was launched on 18 November 2007, all operations have been carried out according to plan.

Boeing announced the successful on-orbit handover of the first of six Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) satellites to the U.S. Air Force. The spacecraft was launched on 10 October 2007 aboard an Atlas V.

Russia’s Space Forces will launch a new and improved military relay satellite in 2009, the forces’ commander said.

The CBERS-2B Earth resources satellite co-developed by China and Brazil has begun providing services for customers in the two countries on 24 January.

SpaceDev, Inc. announced that it recently signed a long-term purchase agreement with Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) to provide mission-critical flight hardware components for the 1300-series spacecraft platform.