Satellite News

Eutelsat Communications and Globacom have signed a multi-year, multi-Gbps wholesale capacity contract, enabling Globacom to extend its coverage beyond the reach of its terrestrial infrastructure, leveraging the Eutelsat KONNECT satellite.

This week marks seven years since the very first satellite that ESA built for the European Union’s Copernicus programme started delivering data to monitor the environment. Having been designed for an operational life of seven years, it is expected to be in service for several years to come.

Orbit Fab, the first company to launch a commercial fuel depot in space, announced the release of the RAFTI Open License, offering a standard refuelling interface design for all satellites in LEO, GEO, and cislunar space. RAFTI stands for Rapidly Attachable Fluid Transfer Interface, and the RAFTI Open License defines the mechanical, electrical, and functional specifications.

Tomorrow.io, which describes itself as weather intelligence and climate security company, announced that it was awarded a US$19.3 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to support deployment of its proprietary radar-equipped weather satellites.

China is offering a small communication satellite platform to countries seeking an affordable solution for their own space-based Internet networks.

China plans to build a special pad at the Wenchang Space Launch Site in Hainan to launch the next-generation Chang Zheng 8 rockets on a weekly basis, the head of the Chang Zheng 8 project at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), Xiao Yun, said on 4 October.

Rocket: Soyuz-2.1a; Payload: Soyuz MS-19; Date: 5 October 2021, 0855 UTC; Launch site: Baikonur, Kazakhstan. The crewed transport spacecraft was accurately placed on the target orbit for another mission to the International Space Station. This was the fifteenth Soyuz family mission in 2021.

Voyager Space announced the acquisition of Valley Tech Systems (VTS), a technology company focused on developing controllable solid hypersonic propulsion and open architecture ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) technologies.