Seeing a potentially major new market, rocket and spacecraft builders are positioning themselves to appeal to designers of small satellite constellations.
After eyeing a low-cost launch opportunity on a Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) rocket, Airbus Defense and Space has selected an Ariane 5 to lift its second European Data Relay System (EDRS) spacecraft to geostationary orbit in the first quarter of 2017.
Budget realities and better software may be thawing the U.S. government’s resistance to “non-traditional” space sensors to augment the high-priced systems it has developed and fielded over the years.
Russia plans to test its Angara rocket in 2016 with a real payload. The heavy lifter is scheduled to enter service in 2021 and replace the Proton launcher in 2025.
Sierra Nevada Corp. will use folding wings and a pressurized/unpressurized “cargo trailer” with the Dream Chaser Cargo System it has entered in NASA’s second-round competition for unmanned vehicles to deliver cargo to the International Space Station.
Europe’s Vega light launcher has scored its first U.S. customer with a contract to launch a tranche of small, high-resolution remote-sensing satellites under Google’s Skybox Imaging initiative.
Company president Gwynne Shotwell says she expects the U.S. Air Force to certify the Falcon 9 by midyear, “if not sooner,” to fly midsized national security payloads.
Satellite Internet startup LeoSat has contracted with manufacturer Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy to conduct a one-year cost study of the company’s planned low Earth orbiting (LEO) constellation of high-throughput broadband satellites.
Built for Paris-based Eutelsat and Asia Broadcast Satellite (ABS) of Bermuda, the electric propulsion spacecraft need eight months to reach their final orbit, creating a lag between their March 1 launch and their ability to generate revenue.
Established satellite service players have largely welcomed Silicon Valley’s sudden interest in the space sector—including some fleet operators who see the potential to collaborate with new LEO networks.
Led by Airbus Defense and Space and Surrey Satellite Technology, the Ku-band Eutelsat Quantum satellite will allow coverage areas to be redefined via software uploads in response to shifting service demand.
An uprated engine and other enhancements to the Falcon 9 rocket will give SpaceX the ability to continue lifting commercial satellites to GEO while testing reusability of the launcher’s core stage. But it could require additional efforts to certify the vehicle for government missions.
Truck-stopping laser; Lockheed backs Rocket Lab smallsat booster; quantum radar entangles microwaves and optics; CMCs feel the heat in GE engine tests; Kalashnikov buys into Russian UAV maker, and other unmanned news.
U.S. Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) took nearly a month to openly acknowledge to the press that one of the country’s oldest satellites fragmented into 43 pieces in orbit last month, creating a debris field.
