NEW DELHI — India has plans to launch a Geostationary Imaging Satellite (Gisat) for real-time observation over the Indian subcontinent and to shore up surveillance over its sensitive borders, a senior government official says. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is in the process of designing the Gisat, which will be placed in geostationary orbit at 36,000 km (22,369 mi.) altitude, the official tells Aviation Week. He did not specify a time frame for the launch.

Worries key testing and reviews are scheduled too close to launch

BUYOUT APPROVED: Shareholders of commercial satellite imagery provider GeoEye approved a proposed buyout Dec. 3 that will leave the company’s chief U.S. competitor, DigitalGlobe of Longmont, Colo., operating the world’s largest fleet of high-resolution Earth imaging satellites. Under the terms of the merger, GeoEye shareholders can opt to take 1.137 shares of common stock and $4.10 per share in cash, a 100% cash payment totaling $20.27 per share, or 100% in stock, with each GeoEye share worth 1.425 shares of DigitalGlobe stock.

Government and industry officials from Europe and the U.S. opened discussions Nov. 30 on how to bring elements of the European Space Agency’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) into the service module for NASA’s Orion multipurpose crew vehicle.

The cracks in three adjacent radial ribs did not go all the way through

Reiterating shared authority over space under the 2009 Lisbon Treaty

MIRROR, MIRROR: NASA plans to hold a workshop in February on possible uses for two 2.4-meter telescope mirrors transferred to the civil space agency in June by the National Reconnaissance Office. Although the optics have been proposed for a wide field infrared survey of the sky, other possibilities include uses for focused space-technology research, human exploration and operations, heliophysics, astrophysics and planetary science. The agency will select concepts for using the mirrors that it believes advance its goals, and allow detailed presentations of them at the Feb.

A small engineering firm on Florida’s Space Coast hopes to recover some of the revenue and jobs the region lost with retirement of the space shuttle fleet by offering maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services to the commercial spaceflight industry that the Obama administration hopes will take the shuttle’s place.