Government/Military

NASA is set to launch its Kepler telescope spacecraft atop a Delta II rocket at 10:48 p.m. ET March 5 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., to begin a multi-year hunt for Earth-like planets. This is the first mission with the ability to find planets like Earth — rocky planets that orbit sun-like stars...

A Trident II D5 fleet ballistic missile was launched from a submarine submerged in the Pacific Ocean, the USS Alabama (SSBN 731), making the 126 successful test flight since 1989, Lockheed Martin Corp. [LMT] announced. That record is unmatched by any other large ballistic missile or space launch vehicle, according to Lockheed. The Navy launched...

Boeing [BA] gave NASA a proposal for design support of a component in the planned Ares V heavy lifter rocket, the company announced yesterday. Ares V will boost to space large items required for missions to the moon that would begin in 2020, the first lunar trips since Apollo missions in the 1970s. Specifically, Boeing...

NASA gave American Tank and Vessel Inc. a contract worth up to $45 million to install a test cell diffuser and systems in the A-3 test stand at Stennis Space Center. Mioss. American Tank, of Mobile, Ala., received a five-year, indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contract. The A-3 test stand is being built at Stennis to...

The Cobra Dane radar at Shemya, Alaska, was transferred from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) to the Air Force. The upgraded radar became available for ballistic missile defense operations in 2004, and is the first missile defense capability MDA has transferred to the Air Force. For decades, the radar supported intelligence data collection on Russian...

[Satellite News 02-20-09] Pierre Parent, vice president and general manager of Numerex Satellite Solutions, is working on developing a hybrid satellite and radio frequency identification (RFID) system for the commercial enterprise markets intended to provide seamless, global asset tagging and tracking capabilities. The concept is similar to the idea of hybrid satellite cellular voice services...

 [Satellite Today 02-20-09] TeleCommunication Systems (TCS) received an additional $5.6 million of funding from the U.S. Army to provide additional system to support ongoing U.S. military operations, TCS announced Feb. 19.     TCS will provide additional secure Internet protocol router and non-secure Internet protocol router access point VSAT systems as well as an assortment of...

[Satellite News 02-19-09] Integral Systems CEO John Higginbotham believes the collision of an Iridium commercial satellite with a defunct Russian military satellite on Feb. 10 was an event that will seriously test space industry conventions, theories, global diplomacy and legal issues for years to come.      The collision should bring calls for immediate prioritization and...

[Satellite Today 02-19-09] Northrop Grumman awarded EMS $35.7 million for continued development work on the new extremely high frequency (EHF) satellite communications system for the B-2 stealth bomber, EMS announced Feb. 18.     The EHF system will allow the B-2 to fully use the communication techniques of both Milstar and advanced EHF satellites.     The...

[Satellite News 02-19-09] Satlynx, a provider of communication services throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa, hopes to use its status as a GE-owned company to sign a deal with the U.S. government in 2009 and expand Satlynx’s  geographical horizons.     GE took control of Satlynx from SES in February 2007. “We are leveraging the...