Satellite News

On 18 October at 1706 UTC, Rosetta’s thrusters were fired in a planned, 42-second trajectory correction manoeuvre designed to ‘fine tune’ the comet-chasing spacecraft’s approach to Earth. Rosetta is now approaching Earth for the second planetary swing-by of 2007.

The MESSENGER spacecraft delivered a critical deep-space manoeuvre — 250 million kilometers from Earth — successfully firing its large bi-propellant engine to change the probe’s trajectory and target it for its first flyby of Mercury on 14 January 2008.

At its meeting held on 17-18 October 2007 in Paris, ESA’s Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) selected the new candidates for possible future scientific missions.

COM DEV International Ltd. said it has secured a space flight opportunity to demonstrate an advanced AIS data detection capability from space. AIS, or Automatic Identification System, is a VHF broadcast system required aboard major marine vessels to locate and identify ships at sea.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has successfully completed the Space Test Program Standard Interface Vehicle (STP-SIV) Critical Design Review (CDR) for the United States Air Force.

BAE Systems said that two of the company’s RAD750 radiation-hardened single-board computers are managing the command and control functions onboard the WorldView-1 satellite, launched on 18 September aboard a Delta II rocket.

TC-1, one of the two satellites of the CNSA/ESA Double Star mission, was decommissioned after four years in orbit on 14 October, re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and burnt up.

ViaSat Inc. has been awarded an US$8.7 million contract from the U.S. Air Force Cryptographic Support Group (CPSG) for system design and development of the next generation Telemetry, Tracking, and Control (TT&C) cryptographic unit.