SpaceNews This Week | Cassini mission ends with plunge into Saturn

September 15, 2017 View this email in your browser Cassini mission ends with plunge into Saturn Jeff Foust — NASA's Cassini spacecraft ended a nearly 20-year mission Sept. 15 with a plunge into the atmosphere of the planet Saturn intended to protect the planet's potentially habitable moons from contamination. The last signals from the Cassini spacecraft arrived at NASA's Deep Space Network antennas near Canberra, Australia, at 7:55 a.m. Eastern, 83 minutes after the spacecraft transmitted them as it dived into Saturn's atmosphere. The loss of signal was within half a minute of predictions made in the days leading up to the encounter. See Full Story House passes spending bill with space provisions intact Jeff Foust — The House of Representatives passed an omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year 2018 Sept. 14 that keeps funding for NASA and NOAA programs unchanged from earlier bills. The House passed by a 211–198 vote H.R. 3354, the Make America Secure and Prosperous Appropriations Act, which combined eight separate appropriations bills into a single omnibus bill. Among the original bills included in the omnibus is the commerce, justice and science (CJS) appropriations bill, which the House Appropriations Committee approved July 13.  See Full Story AsiaSat plans small HTS satellite over China Caleb Henry — Hong Kong-based fleet operator AsiaSat will soon order a "modest"-size high-throughput satellite  (HTS) that will leverage the company's access to the Chinese market, Barrie Woolston, AsiaSat's chief commercial officer, said Sept. 14. "We've looked long and hard at what we can use existing capacity for, and when we will make the leap into HTS," Woolston said at Euroconsult's World Satellite Business Week conference in Paris. "We are at that stage now where we are specifying a new satellite … that will hit the streets in 36 months time." Woolston said AsiaSat is in discussions with manufacturers about the new satellite, called AsiaSat-10, which will be in orbit by 2020. China will be a primary focus for the satellite. See Full Story Lockheed lands contract for more-secure GPS military signals Michael Fabey — The U.S. Air Force awarded Lockheed Martin a $45.5 million contract Sept. 12 to provide an advanced military anti-jamming capability for the Global Positioning System (GPS), but questions remain about when the service will be able to deploy the capability. The Military Code (M-Code) Early Use (MCEU) capability, the company notes, is an advanced new signal designed to improve anti-jamming and protection from spoofing, as well as increase secure access to military GPS signals for U.S. and allied armed forces. The Air Force developed MCEU as part of an effort to mitigate problems dealing with delays in the development of the command and control system for GPS 3 satellites, known as the Next Generation Operational Control System (OCX). That system is at least five years behind schedule, Cristina Chaplain, director of acquisition and sourcing management for the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), testified May 17 before the Senate Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. See Full Story LeoSat Enterprises forges pact to transmit data for Pakistan's Supernet Ltd. Debra Werner — Supernet Ltd., the Pakistani corporate-data network service provider, announced plans Sept. 12 to establish a strategic partnership with LeoSat Enterprises, a Washington-based startup planning to launch a constellation of 78 to 108 communications satellites into low Earth orbit to offer secure, high-speed connections for businesses and government agencies. LeoSat plans to provide Supernet with more than three gigabits of capacity on the global communications network it is developing, which is comprised of satellites built by Thales Alenia Space of France and Italy based on the firm's EliteBus flown by Iridium Communications on its Iridium Next constellation and O3B Networks first-generation constellation. See Full Story Are GEO satellite orders still a good measure of industry health? Brian Berger —  For the world's leading satellite manufacturers, 2017 has been a rather disappointing year so far. Just four contracts have been signed this year for large geostationary communications satellites — the traditional bread-and-butter of the commercial satellite industry and a big drop from the 10-15 orders the likes of Airbus, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Orbital ATK and Thales Alenia Space expected to be fighting for this year. On the other side of the equation, you have the satellite operators themselves, who stand to improve profit margins if they can continue to serve their customers well without constantly replenishing their fleets of  big, expensive geostationary satellites. See Full Story From selling data to selling answers, EO market faces transformation Tereza Pultarova — Earth-observation startups are investing in data analytics and machine learning to transform raw satellite data into marketable insights they say have the potential to be every bit as indispensable to investors and business leaders as the up-to-the-second analytics they get from the likes of a $20,000-a-year Bloomberg terminal subscription. Speaking during the closing day of Euroconsult's World Satellite Business Week here Sept. 15, top executives of Earth-observation startups Urthecast, Planet and others agreed that the growth of their respective businesses will depend on the ability to use the wealth of raw data acquired by their satellites to extract answers needed by customers across a wide range of industries. See Full Story   SpaceNews is establishing an annual awards program this year to recognize individuals, companies and organizations for excellence and innovation.   Winners will be featured in the Dec. 18 issue of SpaceNews. We seek to honor headline-grabbing breakthroughs as well as outside-the-limelight innovations that may have escaped our attention.   A formal announcement on the awards program — including eligibility, criteria, and selection process — will be made in September. Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Advertise with Us | Privacy Policy | Subscribe Copyright © 2017 SpaceNews Inc., All rights reserved. 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