Satellite News

Luxembourg-based Kleos Space S.A. announced the signature of a second Memorandum of Understanding with Airbus Defence and Space, as both companies investigate opportunities to collaborate for the manufacture In-Space of structural elements.

At approximately 1355 UTC on 10 October 2018, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory entered safe mode, where the telescope’s instruments are put into a safe configuration, critical hardware is swapped to back-up units, the spacecraft points so that the solar panels get maximum sunlight, and the mirrors point away from the Sun.

NASA continues to work toward resuming science operations of the Hubble Space Telescope after the spacecraft entered safe mode due to a failed gyroscope (gyro) on Friday, 5 October.

Launched in June 1999 for an intended two-year mission, NASA’s SeaWinds scatterometer instrument on the QuikSCAT spacecraft was turned off on 2 October in accordance with its end-of-mission plan.

Thales Alenia Space has signed two study contracts with the European Space Agency (ESA) in the frame of a joint ESA-NASA study on an international Mars Sample Return mission.

Lockheed Martin has selected Raytheon and a Northrop Grumman/Ball Aerospace team to compete as potential mission payload providers for the U.S. Air Force’s Next Generation Overhead Persistent Infrared (Next Gen OPIR) Geosynchronous (GEO) Block 0 missile warning satellite system.

The Hubble Space Telescope went into Safe Mode on 5 October after a gyroscope failure. Mission experts are taking steps to return Hubble to science.

Lockheed Martin announced it is studying interest in flying commercial payloads aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft.