Satellite News

Small satellite manufacturer and mission services provider Blue Canyon Technologies LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Raytheon Technologies, announced the successful launch of GNOMES-3, aboard the SpaceX Falcon 9 Transporter-4 mission on 1 April.

The Satellite Applications Catapult and Virgin Orbit have announced an agreement to launch the latest satellite in the Catapult’s In-Orbit Demonstration (IOD) programme into space from the United Kingdom later this year.

The European Space Agency (ESA), on behalf of the European Commission, and Arianespace have signed a launch contract for the third radar satellite in the Sentinel-1 mission, Sentinel-1C.

Rocket: Chang Zheng 4C; Payload: Gaofen-3 03; Date: 6 April 2022, 2347 UTC; Launch site: Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, China. The satellite was deployed into a 738 km × 745 km × 98.40 degrees Sun-synchronous orbit.

Rocket: Soyuz-2.1b; Payload: military satellite; Date: 7 April 2022, 1120 UTC; Launch site: Plesetsk, Russia. The satellite was deployed into a 299 km × 900 × 67.15 degrees orbit.

L3Harris Technologies has been awarded US$117 million for option-year three of a U.S. Space Force and U.S. Space Command contract to continue maintaining and modernising infrastructure to track objects in space.

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The flight model of the Scatterometer Antenna Subsystem (SAS) of the MetOp Second Generation meteorological satellites has been officially delivered after four months of extensive testing at the Airbus facility in Madrid. It will now be transferred to Airbus in Friedrichshafen (Germany) where it will be integrated into the satellite along with the other instruments.

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Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has signed a £22 million contract with Defence Equipment and Support on behalf of UK Space Command for a 150-kg satellite based on SSTL’s Carbonite+.

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