News on key developments at SupremeSAT, and general news on the Space and Satellite industry from across the web
A blockage in the loop heat pipe of the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI), the primary instrument on NOAA’s GOES-17 satellite, prevented the instrument from cooling properly and impeded its ability to collect data, according to a special Mishap Investigation Board. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019091600
Iridium Communications Inc. announced that it has been awarded a US$738.5 million, seven-year, fixed-price contract with the United States Department of Defense through the U.S. Air Force Space Command (AFSpC) to provide unlimited satellite services from its Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019091601
Russian state space corporation Roskosmos is working on a cheaper version of the Soyuz rocket to cut launch costs for commercial satellites, Glavkosmos Launch Services CEO Alexander Serkin said. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019091500
A few months from now will see the launch of the first European satellite to demonstrate how onboard artificial intelligence can improve the efficiency of sending Earth observation data back to Earth. Dubbed Ì-Sat, or PhiSat, this artificial intelligence technology will fly on one of the two CubeSats that make up the FSSCat mission. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019091501
NASA has awarded a US$13.7 million contract to Advanced Space of Boulder, Colorado, to develop and operate a CubeSat mission to the same lunar orbit targeted for Gateway – an orbiting outpost astronauts will visit before descending to the surface of the Moon in a landing system as part of NASA’s Artemis programme. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019091502
Spacecom, operator of the Amos satellite fleet, and Botswana Telecommunications Corporation Limited (BTC) announced that BTC is doubling its capacity on Amos-7 communication satellite Ku-beams. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019091503
Eutelsat Americas, a subsidiary of Eutelsat Communications, has been selected by Orby TV for capacity on the Eutelsat 117 West A satellite. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019091504
Rocket: Chang Zheng 4B; Payload: ZY-1 02D [Ziyuan-1 02D], ICE-PATHFINDER [BNU-1], Taurus 1; Date: 12 September 2019, 0326 UTC; Launch site: Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, China. U.S. tracking data show the three satellites in orbits of approx. 732 km x 750 km x 98.6 degrees. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019091200
Relativity Space announced that it has signed a launch services agreement with Momentus, a provider of in-space shuttle services that move satellites between orbits, to launch Momentus’ small and medium satellite customers on Relativity’s Terran 1 rocket. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019091201
Airbus has won a design study from the UK’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) to develop the technologies for a cluster of ultra-high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites for the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD). The satellites will also have the ability to collect radio frequency (RF) signals. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019091100