Government/Military

The NASA/Boeing joint team investigating the issues with Boeing’s uncrewed Orbital Flight Test found that two errors could have led to a risk of losing the spacecraft had the NASA-Boeing team not corrected the issues so that the Starliner could return to Earth. The team convened in January after Boeing’s Orbital Flight Test on Dec....

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has proposed accelerated relocation payments for satellite operators that could total up to $9.7 billion as incentive to quickly clear part of the C-band spectrum for 5G purposes.  Those payments, Pai said, would be paid by the winning bidders of a public C-band auction, who would also reimburse operators for relocation...

Intelsat has reportedly hired law firm Kirkland & Ellis to consider a possible Chapter 11 bankruptcy if U.S. regulators don’t increase the company’s compensation for C-band spectrum, Bloomberg Law reports. Intelsat told Via Satellite on Wednesday that it will not comment on rumor, and Kirkland & Ellis did not respond to a request to comment. Intelsat’s...

L3Harris Technologies has passed the preliminary design review in the U.S. Air Force‘s Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3) project. The review defines the spacecraft’s path to delivery and allows the program to move to the next phase of development. L3Harris Space and Airborne Systems President Ed Zoiss called it “amazing” that the program moved from a...

Intelsat has selected Maxar Technologies to build Intelsat 40e, a next-generation geostationary communications satellite. Maxar also will integrate NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) payload with the Intelsat 40e satellite, which is scheduled to launch in 2022.  Intelsat plans to use the satellite to provide customers across North and Central America with flexible, high-throughput,...

Comtech Telecommunications announced Monday, that its Mission-Critical Technologies group, which is part of Comtech’s Government Solutions segment, was named as one of the awardees to compete under the Global Tactical Advanced Communication Systems (GTACS II) and Services contract vehicle. The multiple award, Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) GTACS II contract vehicle enables multiple companies to compete...

Rocket Lab launched its first mission of the year — dubbed “Birds of a Feather” — on Friday at 02:56 UTC from the company’s Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand’s Mahia Peninsula. The mission carried  dedicated payload NROL-151 for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). It was the smallsat launcher’s 11th Electron launch.  Rocket Lab CEO...

Speedcast Government is supporting a United Nations agency and an independent national electoral committee in Niger, Africa, to prevent electoral fraud. Speedcast Government has been asked to provide satellite internet services, equipment, life-cycle operation, installation, maintenance and logistics support for eight regional electoral sites. The project is divided in two phases and expected to be...

Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems (SAS) enjoyed a 7% increase in fourth quarter (4Q) 2019 net sales to $2.018 billion, compared to $1.88 billion in the fourth quarter 2018, with full-year sales jumping from $6.74 billion to $7.42 billion in 2019. According to Raytheon Corp.‘s latest financial report issued January 30, the SAS division’s increase...

Raytheon has received a 5-year, $197 million contract with the U.S. Air Force to help modernize its missile warning architecture with a new system that will collect and fuse data from an array of sensors to provide a comprehensive picture of launch activity.  Raytheon’s  Intelligence, Information and Services division developed a completely open framework —...