Satellite News

ESA’s Aeolus satellite, which carries the world’s first space Doppler wind lidar, has been delivering global measurements of Earth’s wind since it was launched almost a year ago. However, part of the instrument, the laser transmitter, has been slowly losing energy. As a result, ESA decided to switch over to the instrument’s second laser.

The Space Alliance between Thales Alenia Space (Thales 67%, Leonardo 33%) and Telespazio (Leonardo 67%, Thales 33%) announced that it has signed a contract with the Italian Space Agency (ASI) for the initial development of a satellite system dubbed Ital-GovSatCom. This contract paves the way for a dynamic programme within the scope of the Italian “Space Economy” initiative.

Maxar Technologies announced that it will integrate and fly NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument on a 1300-class satellite in geostationary (GEO) orbit.

On 19 July, Thales Alenia Space completely transferred control of the Yamal-601 satellite to the operational divisions of Gazprom Space Systems.

The Lander Radioscience (LaRa) instrument for ESA’s ExoMars 2020 mission has passed its testing in conditions resembling those on the Red Planet. It will now be transported to Russia for its acceptance review, followed by integration onto the Kazachok Surface Platform, scheduled for launch this time next year.

SRI International, an independent research and technology centre, announced the launch of the Enhanced Tandem Beacon Experiment (E-TBEx) on 25 June 2019, as part of a mission supported by NASA to gather atmospheric data and study how space weather impacts communication and navigation systems.

OneWeb Satellites – a joint venture of OneWeb and Airbus – officially opened the world’s first high-volume, high-speed advanced satellite production facility in Florida, USA.

Lockheed Martin has completed building the capsule for NASA’s Orion spacecraft. The crew module capsule for the uncrewed Artemis 1 mission to the Moon has been stacked on top of the Orion service module, which was also recently finished.