Satellite News

U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officials have announced plans to locate a satellite receiving station in India that will capture data from the future National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System, or NPOESS.

Harris Corporation said it has reached the US$100 million mark in unfurlable antenna orders for commercial satellites during calendar year 2006.

Integral Systems, Inc. announced that it is currently under contract with EchoStar Communications Corp. to add the EchoStar XI satellite (a Loral FS1300 class satellite) to EchoStar’s existing EPOCH IPS satellite control system.

NASA’s Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions During Substorms (THEMIS) spacecraft has arrived in Florida to begin final testing and launch preparations. THEMIS is scheduled to lift off on 15 February aboard a Delta II rocket from Launch Complex 17-B on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

OHB-System AG has recently been awarded a contract by the German Federal Office of Defence Technology and Procurement (BWB), Koblenz, for the implementation of the European satellite-based reconnaissance system.

Designed to spot terrestrial targets and built in a matter of months, Raytheon Company’s first rapid-development space-optical payload was delivered recently to the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory.

Iran’s Zohreh [”Venus,” sometimes also transcribed Zoreh or Zohre] satellite may be launched no earlier than 2009, and not in 2007 as originally planned, a Russian Federal Space Agency official was quoted as saying by Itar-Tass.

Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) said that the WildBlue-1 satellite, after its successful launch on 8 December, has successfully deployed its solar arrays and completed thruster manoeuvres that have placed it in a circular geosynchronous orbit.