News & Events

L3Harris Technologies has been awarded a US$23 million contract to modernise and sustain critical space infrastructure used by the military to keep track of activities and objects in space. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020040202

China is preparing to launch Palapa-N1 (aka Nusantara Dua, aka Nusantara Satu 2) for Indonesia from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China’s Sichuan Province. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020040100

In a recent test, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) fully deployed its primary mirror into the same configuration it will have when in space. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020040101

NASA has awarded the Aerospace, Research, Development, and Engineering Support Services (ARDES) II contract to Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, to execute robotic space missions for the agency through the full mission life cycle, from mission concept and formulation through data analysis. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020040102

Two Galileo navigation satellites will be launched into space in December from the Kourou space centre in French Guiana on a Russian Soyuz launch vehicle, instead of an Ariane 6 rocket, a source in the rocket and space industry was quoted as saying. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020033100

exactEarth Ltd announced that it has entered into an agreement to divest four satellites from its first-generation constellation and its ground station assets to Myriota Canada Inc. ("Myriota Canada"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Myriota PTY Ltd. ("Myriota"). http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020033101

NASA has selected a new mission to study how the Sun generates and releases giant space weather storms – known as solar particle storms – into planetary space. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020033000

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation announced that it has been designated by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) as the contractor of the Global Observing SATellite for Greenhouse gases and Water cycle (GOSAT-GW), the third in the GOSAT series, and has already initiated development activities. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020033001

Controllers at ESA’s mission control centre are preparing for a gravity-assist flyby of the European-Japanese Mercury explorer BepiColombo. The manoeuvre, which will see the mission adjust its trajectory by harnessing Earth’s gravitational pull as it swings past the planet, will be performed amid restrictions ESA has implemented in response to the coronavirus pandemic. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020033002

In response to the ongoing Coronavirus crisis, ESA’s Directorate of Navigation has shifted to teleworking while also ensuring the continuity of essential tasks, in particular the continued delivery of positioning, navigation, and timing services of the European satellite navigation system Galileo and the augmentation system EGNOS. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020033003