Satellite

SpaceWatch.Global is pleased to present: The Space Café Podcast #81: Knicole Colon - Renowned NASA Astrophysicist and Expert in Exoplanet Exploration. The hunt for a second home. Join us in this thought-provoking episode as I sit down with Dr. Knicole Colon, a distinguished astrophysicist from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, to uncover the mysteries of exoplanets and discuss the future of space exploration.

On Thursday, the 25th of May, GLOC2023, Global Space Conference on Climate Change, the first Space conference entirely dedicated to Climate Change closed it’s first edition in Oslo, Norway's capital city. One of the major takeaway points was the need to make data more accessible. “People who work in crucial and critical data should be able to use the data freely,” says Dr Emma Gatti, Editor-in-Chief at SpaceWatch.Global. 

Inmarsat announced on the 24th of May that a new range of service plans for its Jet ConneX inflight broadband solution will be supported by SatCom Direct. SatCom Direct will act as a distribution partner for the airtime and developer of the advanced tail-mount terminal.

The Astranis satellite has completed the orbital manoeuvres necessary to arrive in its orbital slot in Geostationary Orbit (GEO). The Astranis satellite was launched a few weeks ago onboard the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. The satellite, Arcturus, is set to provide high-speed bandwidth to Alaska for our customer Pacific Dataport. Alongside successfully achieving its orbital slot, Astranis has completed a end-to-end test connecting a gateway in Utah with multiple user terminals in Alaska for the first time.

QuadSAT has completed an antenna validation mission with space services operator, Telespazio. Using the QuadSAT drone-based system, it tested a large 17-metre antenna situated at Fucino Space Center in Italy. Other capabilities of the QuadSAT drone-based testing solution, such as ground station tracking performance analysis, were also demonstrated as part of the mission.

Inmarsat Government and Sofant Technologies have announced a collaboration on a state-of-the-art phased array antenna that will enhance connectivity, reliability, and performance in airborne operations. The collaboration aims to revolutionize the communication capabilities of airborne platforms. As a result, the collaboration will combine their respective expertise to develop an innovative solution that addresses the Government airborne users’ growing demand for efficient, low-profile communication systems.

Raytheon Technologies' Collins Aerospace business has announced its plan to bring unlimited data to the customers of Vista, a private aviation group. Using Collins' LuxStream, which runs exclusively on the SES's high-throughput satellite (HTS) network, Vista customers can now enjoy fast, reliable, unlimited internet access for the duration of their flights.

L3Harris Technologies has received an Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) contract to provide technology, including modeling and simulation studies, that will help characterize and predict human mobility. As a result, L3Harris will support the Hidden Activity Signal and Trajectory Anomaly Characterization (HAYSTAC) program by laying the groundwork for generating and analyzing human activities that produce data captured by GPS, Bluetooth, and other systems. The goal of modeling and simulation research is to help transform future autonomous systems.

SmartSat Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), an Australian space research centre, announced on the 23rd of May that they have launched a new research program: Maya Nula. This program intends to develop Australian satellite Earth Observation (EO) capability with space sensor technology to advance Australia’s agriculture industry. 

ICEYE has announced a new imaging mode known as Dwell to enable its synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellites to remain focused on a specific point on the ground for an extended collection time. This unique long-duration imaging mode allows ICEYE satellites to capture significantly more information about the imaging target, creating a powerful new capability for imagery users.