Satellite News

The third modernised Global Positioning System (GPS) Block IIR satellite built by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. Air Force is set for launch aboard a Delta II rocket on 16 November from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. According to latest forecasts, there is only a 30 percent chance that weather conditions will be acceptable for lift-off.

The companies involved in what appears to be a manufacturing error concerning Optus D1 have stayed silent so far. Neither manufacturer Orbital Sciences nor operator Optus released any statements regarding what’s wrong with the recently launched satellite.

SES Americom’s Americom-18 (AMC-18) satellite was recently delivered to Kourou, French Guiana to be readied for its Ariane 5 ECA launch on 8 December.

Optus D1, launched in October, has not been manufactured properly and engineers are scrambling to fix the problem, according to reports from New Zealand.

NASA officials are increasingly pessimistic about the chances to re-establish contact with Mars Global Surveyor (MGS), according to several reports.

An official from the Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies has said that the Baku government is preparing a national communications satellite project.

SciSys, a provider of software services, has announced a major contract from EADS Astrium GmbH to develop on-board satellite software for CryoSat-2.

Spacehab, Incorporated announced that its Astrotech Space Operations subsidiary has been awarded a US$20.0 million contract to design and build a payload processing facility for the U.S. Government, Office of Space Launch.