SpaceNews This Week | Teledyne Brown offers ISS platform for testing spacecraft parts in orbit before flying them for real

08.04.17 View this email in your browser JUST IN: Virgin Orbit to launch SITAEL satellite in ESA/ASI program Teledyne Brown offers ISS platform for testing spacecraft parts in orbit before flying them for real Debra Werner — Teledyne Brown Engineering plans to install a hyperspectral imager built by the German Aerospace Center, DLR, in the firm's International Space Station observatory in March. DLR's Earth Sensing Imaging Spectrometer will be the first payload tested on the Multi-User System for Earth Sensing (MUSES), Teledyne Brown's external Earth-facing platform that traveled to the space station in June inside a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule. Teledyne Brown helped DLR fund the hyperspectral sensor in exchange for rights to the data. "The DLR owns all the scientific data and we own all the commercial data," Chris Crumbly, Teledyne Brown vice president for civil and commercial space business development, told SpaceNews.  SEE FULL STORY Cubesat reliability a growing issue as industry matures Jeff Foust — As cubesats move from technology demonstrations and university projects to operational missions for companies and government agencies, ensuring those spacecraft are sufficiently reliable is a growing issue for the industry. In an Aug. 6 presentation at the 31st Annual Conference on Small Satellites in Logan, Utah, Michael Johnson, chief technologist for the applied engineering and technology directorate of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, warned that despite increasing interest in cubesats and other smallsats at the agency to perform various missions, a lack of assurance about their reliability would keep NASA from pursuing them for some applications. "Because we cannot quantify the mission confidence of cubesat subsystems, we can't use them for certain types of missions," he said. SEE FULL STORY EchoStar buys Jupiter-3 "ultra high density satellite" from SSL Caleb Henry — Satellite fleet operator EchoStar of Englewood, Colorado, revealed Aug. 9 it had signed a contract with Space Systems Loral for the long-awaited Jupiter-3/EchoStar-24 satellite meant to further propel the company's broadband internet success in the Americas and compete head to head with ViaSat's forthcoming ViaSat-3 system. In a conference call with investors and in statements from EchoStar and SSL, the companies described Jupiter-3 as an "ultra high density satellite," capable of beaming honed capacity to concentrated areas of interest for connectivity services.   "After almost a year of hard work, we believe we have come up with an optimum design for an ultra high density satellite, and we've awarded a contract to SSL to build this satellite to be called EchoStar-24/Jupiter-3," Pradman Kaul, president of Hughes Network Systems, said Aug 9. "This new satellite will provide a dramatic increase in capacity in our key markets in the Americas at a very competitive cost per bit. SEE FULL STORY NGA director supports commercial remote sensing regulatory reform Jeff Foust — Facing increasing pressure from both industry and Congress, the head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency said the federal government is taking steps to streamline the licensing process for commercial remote sensing satellites. In a keynote address Aug. 7 at the 31st Annual Conference on Small Satellites here, NGA Director Robert Cardillo said he also expected the newly-reconstituted National Space Council to play a role in speeding up the license application review process as more companies and organizations propose small satellite systems for Earth imaging. Cardillo shared the assessment of others in both industry and government that the sometimes lengthy delays in getting commercial remote sensing licenses from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is caused in large part by the surge in license applications, including from companies planning constellations of satellites or proposing other novel applications that required extended review. SEE FULL STORY U.S. Space Command develops operational concepts for waging war in orbit Michael Fabey — For the U.S. Air Force Space Command, the question is no longer if war is battle zone, but how to fight it. To that end, the command has developed a concept of operations (CONOPS) for fighting in that realm, Gen. John "Jay" Raymond, commander of Air Force Space Command, told attendees Aug. 8 at the annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama. "Space is a warfighting domain just like air, land and sea," Raymond said. With the needs of the Air Force and broader intelligence community in mind, the command recent developed CONOPS for the domain battle. SEE FULL STORY Avanti CEO leaves company Caleb Henry — David Williams, chief executive of broadband satellite operator Avanti Communications, has parted ways with the company he co-founded. London-based Avanti announced July 10 that Williams was leaving the company and its board of directors. A non-executive board director, Alan Harper, is taking his place as an interim CEO effective immediately, the company said. Harper has been at Avanti for five months.  Williams started Avanti in 2000, according to LinkedIn, with David Bestwick, who continues to serve as the company's technical director. Avanti has struggled to finance its latest satellite, the high-throughput Hylas-4 from Orbital ATK, having pulled the full $100 million gained through a three-year super senior facility in June to ensure the satellite is funded through construction and launch on an Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket later this year. SEE FULL STORY   Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Advertise with Us | Privacy Policy | Subscribe Copyright © 2017 SpaceNews Inc., All rights reserved. Our mailing address is: SpaceNews Inc. 1414 Prince St, Suite 204 Alexandria, VA 22314