Government/Military

Viasat has announced the availability of ViaSat 2 satellite communications service for government, defense and military applications. The service leverages ViaSat 2, along with innovations in ground networking technologies. Earlier this month, Viasat conducted a ViaSat 2 satcom system demonstration — attended by representatives from the U.S. armed forces. The speeds on the ViaSat 2...

More than a year and a half ago, Kongsberg Satellite Services (KSAT) built five new satellite receivers in Inuvik, in northwest Canada, as part of a contract with the European Space Agency (ESA). This ground station has remained untouched since 2016, as ksat still requires multiple license approvals. KSAT Chief Executive Officer (CEO) described the...

NASA and United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully launched the second in a series of next-generation weather satellites this week for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). At 5:02 p.m. EST Thursday, NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-S (GOES S) lifted off on an Atlas 5 rocket from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air...

York Space Systems announced the successful completion of the Harbinger Mission Critical Design Review (CDR) leveraging the company’s industrial-grade S-Class spacecraft platform. York’s S-Class platform is a standardized 3-axis stabilized spacecraft capable of supporting 85 kg payloads with up to 100W of Orbit Average Power (OAP). The Harbinger Mission will be the platform’s first flight...

In September, NASA announced that the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket had been delayed from October 2018 to June 2019. Now, it’s likely that launch date will be pushed back again, says the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). According to a Feb. 28 GAO report, given...

On Feb. 28, Japan successfully launched a new optical reconnaissance satellite from Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture. The spacecraft (the details of which are highly classified) will join a fleet of what will eventually be a 10-satellite system capable of photographing any spot on Earth multiple times a day. The main role of the...

Radiant Solutions announced a contract with the U.S. National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to provide more than 1 million labeled objects within high-resolution satellite images that will be used to accelerate the development of machine learning algorithms that can extract valuable information from imagery at scale. NGA is partnering with Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) to...

Telebras, a Brazilian state-controlled public telecommunications company, and Viasat have announced a strategic agreement to bring high-speed, affordable internet to unserved and underserved communities, health clinics, schools and hospitals across all of Brazil. The collaboration will help fulfill the Brazilian government’s National Broadband Program (Programa Nacional de Banda Larga, or PNBL), which is focused on promoting...

As part of its plan to launch more than 60 satellites over the next five years, the India Space Research Organization (ISRO) announced it will launch the first spacecraft, Gsat 11, in April or May. The satellite will carry 40 Ku- and Ka-band transponders, which can deliver up to 14 Gpbs for consumers in India....

MDA announced that it has signed a contract valued at approximately CA$4 million ($3.1 million) with Airbus for design studies dedicated to the optical data relay payload of the third SpaceDataHighway satellite. During this phase, MDA will define the preliminary design of the European Data Relay Satellite System-D (EDRS-D) optical data relay payload. MDA will...