Satellite News

ESA has started testing its European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) for safety-of-life applications such as air traffic control.

The second of Germany’s five SAR-Lupe radar spy satellites has left the premises of Bremen based space technology company OHB-System AG. Its initial destination is the IABG satellite testing centre in Ottobrunn near Munich, where it will be undergoing final comprehensive testing.

China’s recently launched ocean monitoring satellite Haiyang-1B is functioning well and data transmission tests have been successfully carried out, the state oceanic authority said.

Boeing said that initial system checks indicate that the CubeSat TestBed 1 (CSTB1) spacecraft, launched on 17 April aboard a Dnepr rocket, is operational and ready for a series of on-orbit demonstrations that will help the company further develop nano-satellites with a mass of less than 10 kg.

After more than sixteen years in space, Meteosat-5 has reached the end of the lifetime available for the operational phase ans was moved into graveyard orbit.

NASA managers this week completed two key programme reviews that demonstrated the space shuttle servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope is progressing well. The STS- 125 servicing mission to the telescope is targeted for launch in September 2008.

The two U.S: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Orbital Express spacecraft, launched on 8 March in a mated configuration, yesterday successfully separated for the first time.

The next DMSP (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) satellite F-18, scheduled for launch in April 2008, has successfully passed a significant milestone this month when it completed a 10-day system level thermal vacuum test.