Satellite News

The latest four Galileo satellites have been given the green light to begin working alongside the rest of Europe’s satellite navigation fleet.

The Canadian Department of National Defence has awarded a C$15 million contract to Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) for development of multipurpose microsatellites to support Arctic surveillance.

It’s been over a month since engineers have heard from the pair of briefcase-sized spacecraft known collectively as MarCO , which followed NASA’s InSight to the Red Planet. At this time, the mission team considers it unlikely they’ll be heard from again.

The Iridium NEXT constellation of satellites, developed and built by Thales Alenia Space, is now fully operational. Following eight successful launches between January 2017 and January 2019, a total of 75 Iridium NEXT satellites are now fully deployed in low Earth orbit (LEO). More specifically, the constellation operates with 66 satellites at an altitude of about 780 kilometers, distributed in six orbital planes of 11 satellites each, backed by nine in-orbit replacement satellites and six ground spares.

Phase Four, a provider of electric radio frequency (RF) thrusters for in-space propulsion, announced that Capella Space, an aerospace and information services company providing Earth observation data on demand, has purchased six Maxwell engines for initial phase of constellation deployment, with an option to purchase additional Maxwell systems.

Arianespace’s year-opening Ariane 5 flight, which is designated Flight VA247, has been authorised for lift-off on 5 February following a launch readiness review, which was conducted at the Spaceport in French Guiana.

SSL announced it has exercised its right to terminate participation in the Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) programme, a public-private partnership with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, have begun transmitting a new set of commands to the Opportunity rover in an attempt to compel the 15-year-old Martian explorer to contact Earth. The new commands, which will be beamed to the rover during the next several weeks, address low-likelihood events that could have occurred aboard Opportunity, preventing it from transmitting.