Satellite

VOX Space, the Virgin Orbit subsidiary which provides responsive and affordable launch services for the U.S. national security community, has signed a new agreement with the Department of the Air Force, allowing the company’s LauncherOne system to conduct missions to space from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. VOX Space …

Finnish New Space leader ICEYE is the first in the world to demonstrate interferometric capabilities from synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) satellites under 100kg (220 pounds) in mass. With an actively maintained 18-day ground track revisit cycle, ICEYE is now able to produce a further capability that was previously only available from …

The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and Dutch space company Hyperion Technologies have successfully commercialised a key optical component to receive satellite laser links on Earth. The jointly developed Gigabit Detector will benefit operators of optical ground stations worldwide. As of 7 May 2020, Hyperion offers the Gigabit …

Using the most advanced Earth-observing laser instrument NASA has ever flown in space, scientists have made precise, detailed measurements of how the elevation of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have changed over 16 years. The results provide insights into how the polar ice sheets are changing, demonstrating definitively that …

The TsNIIMash rocket and spacecraft scientific center has confirmed the destruction in the earth’s orbit of tanks of the Russian Fregat-SB upper stage, the press service of Roscosmos space agency told TASS on Sunday, 10 May 2020. It said the upper stage was used to place into orbit Spektr-P scientific …

Earth observation satellite Sentinel-6A is currently getting an earful. Airbus space engineers are ‘bombarding’ the latest satellite for the European environment and security programme ‘Copernicus’ with sound in a dedicated chamber at the Space Test Centre of Industrieanlagen-Betriebsgesellschaft mbH (IABG) in Ottobrunn, near Munich. The acoustic noise test simulates the …

Firefly Aerospace, Inc., a leading provider of economical and dependable launch vehicles, spacecraft, and in-space services,  announced on 6 May 2020 that it has secured AS9100 quality certification as it advances from developmental to production phase ahead of the inaugural flight of its Alpha launch vehicle later this year. Firefly …

ST Engineering iDirect, a company of ST Engineering North America, and its long-term partner, Spacecom, operator of the AMOS satellite fleet, announced the successful demonstration of VSAT return capabilities on AMOS-17. The demonstration resulted in an exceptionally wide return link for a small VSAT of 40Mbps using the iDirect iQ …

Astrocast has announced key investments to strengthen the deployment of its advanced and sustainable satellite IoT network. The support validates the market acceptance and the startup’s strong path forward. In the last few months, Astrocast announced a strategic investment made by Marine Instruments, one of the largest bidirectional satellite IoT …

This week’s Space Café WebTalk took place on 5 May 2020, featuring Frank Salzgeber, Head of Innovation and Ventures Office at the European Space Agency (ESA), in conversation with Torsten Kriening, co-publisher of SpaceWatch.Global and COO of ThorGroup GmbH. Frank Salzgeber discussed the ESA’s sustainable and immersive support for space startups and …