September 2020

The telecommunications satellite developed under ESA’s SmallGEO Partnership Project has passed three years of service in orbit. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020091401

China’s optical remote-sensing satellite Jilin-1 Gaofen 02C was lost in a launch failure. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020091300

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has been pressing forward with the development of the H3 Launch Vehicle. In the process, a technical problem was identified regarding the LE-9 first-stage engine, which is a new engine now under development. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020091301

Reconstruction and modernisation of the Sea Launch space complex, currently based in Russia’s Far East, is expected to begin in November 2020, Roskosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said in a video posted on YouTube. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020091302

EUMETSAT and the other European and U.S. partners of the Jason-CS/Sentinel-6 programme have confirmed readiness of all systems and teams for the launch and operations of the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020091303

The Agency for Air Navigation Safety in Africa and Madagascar, ASECNA, has started broadcasting an SBAS (Satellite-Based Augmentation System) signal over the Africa and Indian Ocean (AFI) region, providing the first SBAS open service in this part of the world via NIGCOMSAT-1R. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020091304

GHGSat announced it has successfully completed the first tranche of Series B funding, raising US$30 million and more than doubling the total amount raised since GHGSat was founded to over US$55 million. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020091305

Gilmour Space Technologies said it has secured the first Australian customer for its maiden Eris rocket launch in 2022. Space Machines Company has contracted to launch a 35-kilogram spacecraft to orbit, the largest payload announced to date by an Australian space company. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020091000

The University of Colorado Boulder and Lockheed Martin will soon lead a new space mission to capture the first-ever closeup look at a mysterious class of solar system objects: binary asteroids. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020091001

Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) has successfully demonstrated GNSS-Reflectometry (GNSS-R) from its 18-kg DoT-1 satellite. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020091002