Government/Military

A NASA instrument that will measure ozone and other key pollutants over North America is seeking proposals for hosting services. The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument, flying on a commercial satellite, will make observations from a geostationary vantage point, about 22,000 miles above Earth’s equator. TEMPO will be installed on the Earth-facing portion of the...

NASA has definitized additional requirements under the Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) Common Ground System contract with Raytheon of Aurora, Colorado. This cost-plus award fee modification will increase the contract by more than $59 million for a total value of approximately $1.9 billion. The period of performance remains unchanged as Sep. 30, 2022. The work will be performed at Raytheon’s...

The United Kingdom is drafting its first defense space strategy and intends to unveil it this summer, citing growing threats to its space operations. The strategy, which U.K. Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson recently announced at the first-ever U.K. defense space conference in London, “will set out plans to protect U.K. operations against emerging space-based threats,...

The first satellite in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) new Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) has passed testing and is now operational. Launched last November as JPSS-1 and renamed NOAA-20 once it reached orbit, the satellite provides the National Weather Service with global data for numerical weather prediction models used to develop timely and accurate U.S. weather forecasts....

It is said that history repeats itself, but could this be true of rockets launched from high-altitude balloons (aka rocoons)? Used in the 1950s Air Force program Farside, could rockoons make a comeback? Dane Rudy, CEO of Leo Aerospace, would like to see a resurgence. His recent promotion of the smallsats ballooning into stratosphere follow...

Orolia has announced that its atomic clock solutions have been selected for Galileo’s Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). Each satellite will carry two Rubidium atomic clocks and two passive Hydrogen Masers. Under contracts totaling 26 million euros ($30.3 million), Orolia will supply its Spectratime Rubidium Atomic Frequency Standard and its Passive Hydrogen Masers physics package...

Comtech Telecommunications has announced that during its third quarter of fiscal 2018, its command and control technologies group, part of Comtech’s Government Solutions segment, received orders totaling in excess of $16.2 million from two U.S. entities. The company received a contract in excess of $2 million from a U.S. prime contractor for the supply of...

NASA has exercised options under the Rapid Spacecraft Acquisition III (Rapid III) contract for two additional Joint Polar Satellite System (JPSS) spacecraft to be built for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The space agency selected Orbital ATK to build NOAA’s JPSS-3 and JPSS-4. The contract value is $460 million and the period of performance will...

Intelsat has appointed Juan Pablo Cofino as regional vice president of Latin America and the Caribbean. Cofino will be responsible for the development and implementation of Intelsat’s sales and regional go-to-market strategies for the company’s broadband, mobility, media and government customers operating in Latin America and the Caribbean. He will be based in Intelsat’s Coral...

Madison Dearborn Partners (MDP) and CoVant Management have acquired military satellite communications prime contractor LinQuest Corporation.The company’s management, including CEO Leon Biederman, will retain a significant minority ownership position in LinQuest and continue to lead the company. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Headquartered in Los Angeles, LinQuest designs, develops and delivers engineering...