SatNews

Satellite Industry Intelligence Since 1983

Missions & Constellations

Nothing Could Be Finer Than A Launch In… Sriharikota

August 3, 2007 / Mission Deployments & Manifests

Yet another successful launch… the birds are truly flying well of late. INSAT-4CR was inserted into orbit by the GLSV-FO4 with a lift-off occurring from the Satish Dhawan Space Center at Sriharikota at 6:21 p.m. on Sunday, September 2nd. Packing 12 Ku-band transponders, the satellite was injected into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) of 170 km perigee and 35,975 km apogee with an orbital inclination of 21.7 degrees with respect to the equator about 17.55 minutes after lift-off.

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SpaceX Dragon Satisfies NASA Safety Panel

August 3, 2007 / Mission Deployments & Manifests

One down, two to go… the first of three review phases required by the Safety Review Panel (SRP) at NASA have been completed quite successfully by SpaceX for the mission of sending their Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station. Over four days at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, SpaceX engineers who are developing the Dragon spacecraft presented their Phase I plan for this voyage to ISS.

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The FAA’s Golden GPS Ring Captured by ITT Corporation

August 3, 2007 / Navigation & PNT

The initial Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) $207 million, three-year contract for the development and deployment of the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system has been awarded to ITT Corporation. This program is tasked with improving the safety and efficiency of the growing demands of air transportation.

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Garmin Says Do Not Go Blindly Into That Dark, Dark Night… Or Bright, Bright Day, For That Matter

August 3, 2007 / Navigation & PNT

Knowing where to go, or having assistance in doing so, avoids numerous cuts and bruises and otherwise dented vehicles while scrambling for a map in the glove compartment, or pulling the map from your face with your car window open while driving… fortunately, there is the new Garmin nüvi 700 series satellite navigation system just released. The user interface is intuitive and offers an easy navigation experience.

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A Block Off The Other Blocks Passes Tests

July 30, 2007 / Spacecraft & Payload Technology

Testing… testing… electrical power system, attitude determination and control system, telemetry, tracking and command and navigation payload… wow, they’re all working as they should and have been integrated properly into the satellite. That’s the word from the Global Positioning Wing who has successfully passed the Initial Integrated System Test on the first GPS Block IIF satellite at the Boeing Spacecraft Development Center in El Segundo, California.

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Newtec Shares Core Values With TurboConcept

July 30, 2007 / Spacecraft & Payload Technology

Intellectual Property Cores (IP cores) are blocks of logic or data used in creating a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) for a product. These wee components should be entirely portable in that they should be easy to insert into any vendor technology or design methodology.

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SpaceDev Appreciates Being Appreciated

July 28, 2007 / Exploration & Science Missions

En route to the Red Planet is the Mars Phoenix Lander. And we’ve learned today that SpaceDev (OTCBB:SPDV) provided key hardware and instruments for this endeavor that included five flight actuator assemblies, key components of the Wet Chemistry Laboratory for the Microscopy, Electrochemistry, and Conductivity Analyzer (MECA) instrument that’s aboard NASA’s craft, all via contract to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

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