Government/Military

An international military customer has placed a $3.5 million order for KVH Industries’ TACNAV tactical navigation systems. Revenue from this order is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2017 and conclude in 2018. According to KVH, its TACNAV military vehicle navigation systems provide unjammable precision navigation, heading, and pointing data for vehicle drivers,...

Education and cooperation across borders was the main theme of the space agency leaders panel at the 33rd Space Symposium. The speakers, representing agencies from countries across the globe, outlined some of their plans and concerns for the short-term future — but each stressed that progress can only be made with assistance from international allies....

A Remote Interface Unit, an aluminum electronic enclosure designed to hold avionic circuits, will be the first 3-D printed part certified for use on a Lockheed Martin military satellite. The unit will be used on the U.S. Air Force’s sixth Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF 6) satellite. By going from multiple machined parts to one...

Space Systems Loral (SSL) announced completion of the Systems Requirements Review (SRR) for the Restore-L project to demonstrate satellite servicing in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). As announced on December 9, 2016, SSL is working with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to build a spacecraft that will use robotics to grasp, refuel, and relocate an existing...

Orbital ATK announced it successfully concluded 17 years of mission support for NASA’s Earth Observing 1 (EO 1) satellite. NASA decommissioned the spacecraft, built by Orbital ATK for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, on March 30. Launched on November 21, 2000, the EO 1 satellite had an initial design and mission life...

Last December, Russia spooked military officials with the successful flight test of a new Anti-Satellite (ASAT) missile, the PL-19 Nudol. At the time, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) officials expressed concern that the U.S.’ own anti-satellite capabilities were not up to par, as the test was a grim reminder that foreign powers continue to...

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded Descartes Labs a grant as part of its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase 2 program. This grant acknowledges the work Descartes Labs has done to consolidate petabytes of satellite imagery into a cloud-based platform built for analysis and scientific forecasting. With this SBIR grant, Descartes...

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Weather Service (NWS) has awarded Earth Networks a five-year, $2.5 million contract to leverage the company’s Total Lightning Network and advanced lightning data to more rapidly identify severe weather, improve severe weather warning lead times, enhance forecaster situational awareness, and advance research toward innovative forecasting tools. Earth...

SolAero Technologies announced that it has delivered its lightweight solar cell technology to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) to power its Solar-Soaring Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) demonstrator. SolAero’s UAV-TJ solar cells will convert solar radiation directly into electricity in order to provide power for extended duration flight, to charge the vehicles’ batteries for overnight...

During a Mountain View, California, forum this week organized by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), SES showcased some of its solutions geared toward humanitarian and disaster relief efforts. The company’s solutions are designed to help restore essential communication links, ensuring immediate coverage via capacity reserved for relief efforts and...