Satellite News

NASA has selected Alcatel Alenia Space for award of a US$50,000 Rapid Spacecraft Development Office II contract. This award under a commercial, fixed price, indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract has a potential maximum value of US$1.5 billion.

ArSat, the state-controlled Argentinian satellite operator, plans to take over the assets of Nahuelsat and save the country’s 81 degrees West slot — with the help of SES Americom, several Latin America media reported.

China plans to launch more than 50 microsatellites, each with a mass less than 1,000 kilogram, in next five to ten years, the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. (CASIC) said according to Xinhua news agency.

The second of five Special Sensor Ultraviolet Limb Imager (SSULI) remote sensing instruments, developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, was launched on 4 November 2006 on board the DMSP F-17 satellite.

TacSat-2, scheduled for launch aboard a Minotaur I from Wallops Island in December, will serve as the predecessor for rapid satellite production, launch and operation, the U.S. Air Force said.

Northrop Grumman Corporation has delivered all V-Sensor deployable antenna assemblies that will be used to detect nuclear blasts as an adjunct payload on the GPS-2F programme.

QinetiQ said it was launching a European satellite interference geo-location service. This service will assist in the fight against malicious or accidental disruption to satellite communications services.

Now that all the instruments carried on MetOp-A have been successfully switched on, the first Level-1b images from the MHS instrument, which measures atmospheric humidity and temperature, and the first Earthshine spectra from the ozone monitoring instrument GOME-2 have been acquired.