Government/Military

[Satellite Today 07-29-08] Elta S.A., a joint company of Areva and OHB Technology, has acquired SMP S.A, Elta announced July 29.     SMP has designed and manufactured electronic equipment and components for space satellite communication for 30 years, focusing on the ground stations segment for French and French and European space programs. SMP reported revenues...

[Satellite News 07-27-08] The big question for optimizing satellite technology is how to speed up the uplink. The good news is that the technology to dramatically increase the speed of the uplink is more than a decade old and some just may not realize it.     “In terms of the data rate transfer, we were...

[Satellite Today 07-25-08] ATK completed a mission demonstrating how clusters of small satellites can work together to collect data, ATK announced July 24. A constellation of five microsatellites ATK built for NASA’s Themis (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) mission, was lined up Feb. 28 along the sun-Earth line. Using data collected...

[Satellite Today 07-24-08] Lockheed Martin delivered the core propulsion module for the third Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) military communications system six months ahead of schedule, the company announced July 24.     The core propulsion module contains integrated propulsion systems, panels and other components which maneuver the satellite during transfer orbit to its final location...

[Satellite Today 07-24-08] Norsat International Inc. released the first product in its vehicle-mount satellite terminal family and signed contracts with the U.S. military and an Asian broadcasting network to provide terminals for the transmission of video data feeds, the company announced July 24.     The terminals initialize and optimize modem and transmitter settings and automatically...

[Satellite Today 07-24-08] Kayser-Threde GmbH received the prime contract from the Space Agency of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) for the TET-1 satellite, the company announced July 24.     Kayser-Threde with manufacture and test the satellite, develop the infrastructure for the satellite mission, and procure launch services.     TET-1 is the core element of DLR’s...

[Satellite Today 07-24-08] SES Astra TechCom won a lucrative contract to deliver a network operations center for the new Vietnamese satellite system, Vinasat, SES Astra announced July 24.     Vinasat-1, Vietnam’s first state-owned satellite, was manufactured by Lockheed Martin Commercial Space Services and has been operational since May. It is being used to reduce the...

[Satellite Today 07-23-08] Digital Angel’s Sarbe division received Cospas-Sarsat type approval for its Advanced Aircrew Personal Locator Beacon, the company announced     Cospas-Sarsat is a satellite system that provides distress, alert and location data to assist search and rescue operations. Personal locator beacons are standard survival equipment for military aircrews and increasingly are used in...

[Satellite Today 07-23-08] Spot LLC has expanded satellite coverage of its satellite messenger servivce to include all of Alaska, the Aleutian Islands and the surrounding maritime regions, the company announced July 23.     Spot enables users to send their GPS location and status update message to friends, family or an emergency response center. The expanded...

[Satellite Today 07-23-08] General Dynamics mounted three 18.4-meter satellite antennas on 53-foot-tall pedestals in Wahiawa, Hawaii, in preparation for the deployment of the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS), the company announced July 22.     MUOS is the U.S. military’s next-generation narrowband global mobile satellite communications system and will enable users to communicate directly with each...