Satellite News

Northrop Grumman Corporation said it has completed Phase I and entered Phase II of a study contract to assist the U.S. Air Force in defining a payload for next-generation polar military satellite communications.

ESA’s Envisat satellite and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) geostationary data relay test satellite Kodama have successfully completed an interoperability test demonstrating that scientific data from Envisat can be transmitted to Kodama and from there transmitted to the Japanese ground receiving station in Tsukuba.

KT Corp. said its Koreasat-5, also known as Mugunghwa-5, has started its commercial operation.

Alcatel Alenia Space has signed a contract with the Russian Satellite Communications company (RSCC), the state-owned satcom operator, to provide telecommunication payloads for the Ekspress MD-1 and Ekspress MD-2 satellites built by Khrunichev.

Preparations for launching China’s first space mission to the Moon have entered its final phase, with officials expecting a lift-off early next year.

AeroAstro, Inc. announced the successful completion of the Pre-Ship Review on the STPSat-1 satellite by the U.S. Air Force.

Emcore Corporation said its Photovoltaics Division has been awarded a multi-year purchase order from a leading manufacturer of high power geosynchronous communications satellites.

The MEASAT-3 communications satellite has been shipped from the Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems satellite manufacturing facility to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, where it will be readied for a December launch aboard an International Launch Services Proton M/Briz M rocket.