Government/Military

NASA has awarded Kymeta’s government solutions division two grants via the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to develop small, space-based, low Size, Weight And Power (SWaP) flat panel Ka-band terminals for CubeSats and other Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. “These grants will allow Kymeta government solutions to supply NASA with our proprietary metamaterials-based low...

Northrop Grumman announced on Sept. 18 that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Orbital ATK for approximately $7.8 billion in cash, plus the assumption of $1.4 billion in net debt. The boards of directors of both companies unanimously approved the deal, which is expected to close in the first half of 2018 given...

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman Kiran Kumar announced on Sept. 15 that ISRO will resume launching satellites by “November or December.” According to Kumar, the organization will schedule its next launch mission after the submission of a committee report studying the cause of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle’s (PSLV) mission failure on Aug....

Space Systems Loral (SSL) announced that NASA has awarded the next phase of funding for its Dragonfly on-orbit satellite assembly program. SSL and its partners, which include MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates (MDA), NASA, and Tethers Unlimited, will now move forward with design of the semi-autonomous robotic system after completing a ground demonstration of the Dragonfly...

The U.S. Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin a $45.5 million contract to provide Military Code (M-Code) Early Use (MCEU) capability to the Global Positioning System (GPS). Part of the Air Force’s overall modernization plan for the GPS, M-Code is a new signal designed to improve anti-jamming and protection from spoofing, as well as to increase...

As the southern United States recovers from two monstrous back-to-back hurricanes, states in the Pacific Northwest continue to battle ash and smoke drifting from wildfires raging nearby. Almost 1.5 million acres are currently ablaze in the region — and the U.S. Forest Service, a small, arguably underfunded agency, is seeking more efficient ways to monitor...

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions announced it has received a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) sole-source, three-year, single award Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract to provide training-related products and services in a variety of disciplines to Royal Saudi Naval Forces (RSNF), the naval force of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The award, issued by Naval...

As the U.S. Air Force forges ahead in crafting its next-generation wideband space architecture, and the Trump Administration seeks approval for a FY ’18 budget with strong increases in space defense spending, Via Satellite spoke with Air Force strategists, procurement decision makers and satellite industry government experts about how they see the Department of Defense’s...

While already providing valuable imagery around current hurricanes, such as Harvey and Irma, GOES 16 is aimed at becoming an even more critical asset for weather forecasting. High-performance optical filters from Materion’s Precision Optics business, equipped on a Harris imaging instrument on the United States’ next-generation weather satellite, GOES 16, are poised to serve an expanded...

Lockheed Martin’s second, fully-assembled GPS 3 Space Vehicle (SV) completed a realistic simulation of its future launch experience and passed this critical acoustic environmental test with flying colors on July 13, the company stated on Sept. 5. During acoustic testing, technicians continuously blasted the GPS 3 SV02 satellite with sound reaching 140 decibels in a...