Government/Military

A communications satellite developed by NASA was damaged last Friday at Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida. According to NASA, the incident involved the satellite’s Omni S-band antenna and occurred during final spacecraft closeout activities on the Tracking Data Relay Satellite Mission (TDRS-M). Although they have not released any additional information, NASA and manufacturer Boeing...

ETL Systems has announced that General Dynamics and the Canadian Armed Forces will use its Radio Frequency (RF) equipment for in-service support of the Mercury Global Anchor Segment (MGAS). The MGAS anchor stations — seven stations at three sites across Canada — will communicate with the Wideband Global Satcom (WGS) satellite constellation and link them...

The Luxembourg Parliament adopted a draft law on the exploration and use of space resources. The country is thus the first in Europe to offer a legal framework ensuring that private operators can be confident about their rights on resources they extract in space. The law will come into force on August 1. Its first...

Orbital ATK’s lawsuit against the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), in which it sought to join DARPA’s Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites (RSGS) program, has been dismissed by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. On July 12, District Judge Leonie Brinkema granted DARPA’s April request for a dismissal due both...

Kratos Defense & Security Solutions announced that the United States government recently awarded its RT Logic subsidiary a Wideband Communications Architecture Study (WCAS) contract to help define the next generation resilient ground architecture for the Department of Defense (DOD). Kratos will carry out three of the study’s primary tasks: defining the overall ground architecture; identifying...

Comtech Telecommunications announced that during its fourth quarter of fiscal 2017, its command and control technologies group received a $14.5 million contract modification from the United States’ Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA). The modification will result in the exercise of the fourth-year option under an existing contract to provide Ku-band satellite bandwidth and support services...

Geoscience Australia, Australia’s public sector geoscience organization, has renewed its contract with Speedcast for life-saving connectivity applications. Speedcast provides Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) connectivity for Geoscience Australia’s seismic reading and GPS land movement applications. Australia has a substantial number of sites around the country that use the seismic reading application, which is part of...

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday, June 30, resurrecting the National Space Council, an organization originally established to coordinate the United States’ space policy between government agencies. Vice President Mike Pence will be the chairman of the new Council, serving alongside several presidential cabinet members, secretaries from multiple government departments, NASA representatives,...

The U.S. Air Force announced it has awarded United Launch Alliance (ULA) a contract to launch the Space Test Program-3 (STP-3) mission. This contract resulted from a competitive award under the Air Force’s Phase 1A procurement strategy and is valued at $191.1 million. The STP-3 mission is scheduled to launch in the summer of 2019...

EchoStar Mobile announced that it is joining the European Space Agency (ESA) and other space industry leaders in a joint effort to develop and promote 5G services, and to demonstrate the value that the satellite industry can bring to the acceleration of 5G throughout Europe. According to ESA, 5G provides a major opportunity for the European...