Satellite News

Boeing announced that GOES-P, the third of three Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) built for NASA and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has successfully completed thermal vacuum testing.

The second of four pairs of massive solar arrays and a Solar Alpha Rotary Joint (SARJ), built by Lockheed Martin at its Space Systems facility in Sunnyvale, will be launched aboard the space shuttle Atlantis to the International Space Station (ISS) as early as 27 August 2006.

Following the launch on 4 August 2006 by an ILS Proton Briz M, Eutelsat’s Hotbird 8 satellite has reached geosynchronous orbit through three apogee engine firings.

Four Russian companies will take part in a tender for the manufacture of a satellite to replace Belarus’ BelKa satellite.

The STEREO mission — two nearly identical spacecraft the size of golf carts — are scheduled to launch on 31 August aboard a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Their observations will enable scientists to construct the first-everthree-dimensional views of the Sun.

Belarus is expected to announce a tender for a new BelKa satellite to replace the one destroyed when a Dnepr rocket crashed in Kazakhstan in July.

In the second half of 2007, China will project its first satellite for monitoring environment and natural disasters, Xinhua news agency reported.

Space Systems/Loral (SS/L) has been awarded a contract to build the TerreStar-2 MSS (mobile satellite services) satellite for TerreStar Networks Inc.