News on key developments at SupremeSAT, and general news on the Space and Satellite industry from across the web
Following the financial commitment from ESA Member States at last November’s Council at Ministerial Level Space19+, ESA’s industrial policy committee has approved contracts totalling EUR2.55 billion to forward the development of six new Copernicus satellite missions, each mission comprising two satellites, a development and a recurrent unit. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020070503
OHB System AG, a subsidiary of Bremen-based space and technology group OHB SE has been selected by the European Space Agency ESA as the prime contractor for the CO2M mission (CO2 Monitoring Mission in the Copernicus program). http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020070504
Ball Aerospace was selected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for four, six-month study contracts that will inform mission, spacecraft and instrument concepts for future operational weather architectures and Earth observation capabilities. Ball Aerospace is also collaborating on a fifth study contract awarded to L3Harris Technologies. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020070505
OneWeb announced that it has entered into an agreement with a consortium led by the British government (through the UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy) and Bharti Global Limited ("Bharti") for the acquisition of the OneWeb business in connection with its court-supervised sale process. The bid is designed to capitalise the…
The launch of a Rocket Lab Electron rocket with several small payloads aboard failed owing to a problem with the rocket’s second stage after lift-off from Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand, at 2119 UTC on 4 July 2020. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020070400
Payload preparations for Arianespace’s next mission have moved into full swing with arrival of the third satellite to be lofted on a heavy-lift Ariane 5 flight from the Spaceport in French Guiana on 28 July. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020070200
A Soyuz-2.1b rocket will blast off in the autumn to deliver Russia’s Gonets communications satellites into orbit along with 15 foreign space vehicles as a hosted payload, Deputy CEO of Glavkosmos commercial launch operator Vitaly Safonov was quoted as saying. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020070201
Airbus Defence and Space has won a contract for a fully reconfigurable telecomunications satellite from Australia’s second largest telecommunications company and leading satellite operator Optus. The satellite will be based on Airbus’ new standard OneSat product line and is Airbus’ first contract from the Australian operator. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020070202
Thales Alenia Space has recently been selected by the European Space Agency (ESA) in coordination and with the agreement of the European Commission, for major Copernicus missions. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020070203
On behalf of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), NASA has awarded the Space Weather Follow On-Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) Solar Wind Plasma Sensor (SWiPS) contract to South West Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Texas. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020070204