Satellite News

The new German radar imaging satellite TerraSAR-X will be launched later this year as part of a project financed by joint funding from both the public and private sectors for the first time, the German Aerospace Agency (DLR) said.

Building a replacement for the Belarusian BelKa satellite will take between two and two-and-a-half years, Mikhail Myasnikovich, chairman of the Belarusian National Academy of Sciences (BNAS), was quoted as saying.

A part that is to fly aboard the Hubble Space Telescope during a possible Space Shuttle mission has been damaged damaged in an accident on 7 September. According to New Scientist, the incident will not affect the servicing mission.

Integral Systems, Inc., announced the award by the U.S Air Force of two cost plus award fee modifications totalling US$7.8 million to modify the Command and Control System-Consolidated (CCS-C) effort to support the Wideband Global SATCOM (WGS) programme.

The NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) awarded a Phase II US$400,000 grant to the Bae Institute. The Institute will demonstrate the Photon Thruster/Tether (Push/Pull) control and system stability in a vacuum chamber with off-the-shelf components.

The STS-115 crew successfully completed the full deployment of the International Space Station’s new set of solar arrays at 1244 UTC.

Raytheon Company has been awarded a US$950,000 U.S. Air Force contract to demonstrate improvements to space situational awareness.

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has arrived at its nearly circular, low-altitude pattern science orbit.