Government/Military

NASA announced Nov. 21 that its Mars Global Surveyor has likely finished operations after a 10-year mission, the longest one sent to the red planet. The spacecraft has not communicated with Earth since Nov. 2, days short of the anniversary of its Nov. 7, 1996, launch. Its camera had returned more than 240,000 images to...

The United States Air Force has awarded Boeing Co. with a $674,116,428 cost-plus-award fee contract providing for Delta 4 launch capability for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) rocket program. The plan includes launch and range operations for Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.; mission integration, mission unique development...

A Boeing Delta II launch vehicle successfully delivered to orbit Nov. 17 a replenishment Block 2R Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite for the U.S. Air Force. The Delta II has launched all of the GPS 2R satellites. The launch also marked the second GPS mission aboard a Boeing Delta II in less than two months;...

NASA is using one space probe orbiting Mars to search for another spacecraft left missing around the planet. Earlier in the month, the Mars Global Surveyor lost contact with Earth for two days, and last week NASA received a weak signal without data. The probe since has not confirmed receiving a command to direct one...

The European Space Agency (ESA) has created a special layer of content that will appear in Google Earth, enabling people to see more than 130 new satellite images including natural phenomena and manmade landmarks such as the Palm Islands in Dubai. The new images can be accessed by clicking on the checkbox of Google Earth’s...

Battery producer Eaglepicher Technologies has landed a new, $1.8 million contract to provide nickel-hydrogen battery cells to Lockheed Martin for use on a new U.S. Navy satellite communications system, Eaglepicher reported. The Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite constellation will form a new network of spacecraft for the U.S. Department of Defense to provide narrowband...

The U.S. Air Force is developing an orbital test vehicle, based on the design of a NASA X-37 technology demonstrator, to continue full-scale development and on-orbit testing of an unmanned, long-duration, reusable space vehicle. The OTV effort takes advantage of industry and government investments by Air Force, NASA, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency....

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (OOSA), within the framework of the United Nations Program on Space Applications, will hold a five-day training course on the International Satellite System for Search and Rescue (Cospas-Sarsat) with the Department of Transport of the Republic of South Africa. The training course, to take place in Cape...

Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS) claims it has been awarded the first governmental Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) contract designed to harness signals from all current and planned positioning satellite systems. The Tennessee Department of Transportation will use the satellite reference network that will rely on signals from GPS, Russia’s Glonass and Europe’s planned Galileo system....

A request by ICO Global Communications to delay construction of its geostationary satellite means the company’s plans to launch a hybrid satellite-terrestrial communications system will be pushed back even further, and could indicate that development of its system remains up in the air, according to one industry analyst. On Nov. 9, ICO filed a request...