Government/Military

[Via Satellite 12-30-2014] Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have beamed the programmed maneuvers for the Dawn spacecraft to begin its approach phase as it nears Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt. Dawn was recently behind the sun relative to Earth during a period of time known as solar conjunction that...

[Via Satellite 12-30-2014] China’s first geostationary meteorological satellite, FY 2C, has been deorbited in compliance with national space debris mitigation standards and those of the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC), according to China’s state-run media agency Xinhua. The deorbit process took from Dec. 10 to Dec. 13. FY 2C launched in October 2004, and...

[Via Satellite 12-26-2014] Scientists have continued to make use of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA’s) Venus Climate Orbiter Mission AKATSUK after it missed its intended orbital injection around the planet in 2010. Researchers from the University of Tokyo and from the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) using an instrument aboard the spacecraft...

[Via Satellite 12-26-2014] Lockheed Martin reports the third Mobile User Objective System satellite (MUOS 3) is encapsulated in its payload fairing for a Jan. 20, 2015 launch. United Launch Alliance (ULA) is contracted to launch the U.S. Navy satellite aboard an Atlas 5 rocket. The first two satellites, MUOS 1 and MUOS 2, launched in...

[Via Satellite 12-24-2014] NASA has announced collaborative partnerships with four U.S. companies developing new space capabilities for government and commercial customers. The un-funded partnerships with SpaceX, United Launch Alliance (ULA), ATK Space Systems and Final Frontier Design are part of the Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC) initiative to bring new space technologies to market...

[Via Satellite 12-24-2014] Inmarsat’s U.S. Government Business Unit reached 10 Mbps while testing an on-demand lease service with the experimental L-band Advanced Communications Element (LACE) terminal. The prototype established a 10 Mbps return link for real-time video from the Middle East and Africa through a small L-band antenna across the Alphasat satellite. According to Inmarsat,...

[Via Satellite 12-23-2014] Harris Corporation has received an $18 million order for Harris Falcon 3 tactical vehicular radios and intercom systems from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The company plans to integrate the Falcon RF-7800V combat net radio with the RF-7800I intercom systems for the Philippine Army’s Light Armored Division for the military’s...

[Via Satellite 12-22-2014] NASA, the United States Air Force and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have joined forces to revive the Triana satellite, renamed the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR), for a five year space weather mission. First planned in the late 1990s, the mission was cancelled and put into storage in 2001....

[Via Satellite 12-192014] Galileo’s fifth satellite, which was recently salvaged from the wrong orbit to begin navigation testing, has been combined with three of its predecessors to provide its very first position fix. This achievement is particularly significant because the fifth satellite is the first of a new design of 22 Galileos set to launch...

[Via Satellite 12-192014] Exelis and Iridium Communications have successfully demonstrated a new global-reach communications capability for the United States Defense Information Systems Agency’s (DISA) Distributed Tactical Communication System (DTCS). The capability, once deployed, will advance the Department of Defense’s (DOD) critical satellite communications network, bringing secure, reliable and global communications services to users in the...