Arianespace announces successful launch of 1801st Soyuz launch vehicle

Arianespace, a French commercial space transportation company, made a recent announcement that the Soyuz launch vehicle successfully sent its 1801st flight into space. The launch took place on Friday, March 29, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 00:43 Moscow time.

As the third Soyuz family mission for this year, Arianespace together with its Russian associates reported that the Soyuz TMA-08M manned transport spacecraft was placed accurately on its intended orbit for yet another mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

After the introduction of Soyuz at the Guiana Space Center (CSG) two years ago, the famed Russian medium-class launch vehicle instantly became an essential part of the European launch vehicle fleet, along with the lightweight Vega and heavy-lift Ariane 5. Offered to the commercial market, the French Guiana Soyuz is said to be Europe’s reference medium-class launch vehicle for commercial and governmental missions.

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Intelsat extends capacity agreement with Lebanese distributor ART/IND

Intelsat, a leading satellite service provider of voice, data and Internet solutions, extended its multi-year contract with ART/International Network Distribution. The Lebanese company is known as a leader in aggregating and distributing niche and international channels in the global market.

ART/IND extended its initial agreement on the Intelsat 21 satellite, which is located at 302 degrees East, so that the company will be able to contribute and distribute its key programming channels in the U.S. The company, an Intelsat customer for more than ten years now, will be added to the list of other leading media companies on the satellite in providing a combination of various content.

Together with Intelsat 805, Intelsat 21 provides excellent video neighborhoods and DTH platform to media companies, therefore allowing excellent access to viewers.

“Through this agreement, we are able to continue serving our growing number of channel affiliates and customers and enjoy the global coverage that we require,” said Karim Abdallah, ART/IND’s CEO. “With its reliable satellite fleet and expansive coverage, Intelsat is uniquely capable of providing the access we need to serve our channel affiliates and customers.”

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House of Representatives approves increase in weather satellite program funding

The U.S House of Representatives recently approved a legislation that will help the budget shortfall threatening to delay the geostationary weather satellites of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

With a vote of 267-151, lawmakers voted to pass a spending bill that would keep the federal government operating after the current stopgap funding legislation expires on the 27th. Although the house bill would keep funding flat at the 2012 level for most of the federal agencies and departments, the geostationary weather satellites of the NOAA are an exception.

With two geostationary spacecraft orbiting at fixed points above Earth, these weather satellites help transmit crucial data for use in weather forecasts and for tracking storms. Once the spending bill is passed, it would approve an extra $186 million more than NOAA’s program received last year, setting aside a total of $802 million for the agency’s next-generation weather satellite, GOES-R.

Without the funding for the geostationary satellites, the spacecrafts could face further delays, translating into a longer and more severe weather satellite gap expected to occur in the next few years. However, before NOAA can receive the capital for the program, the Senate must approve the legislation first for it to become a law.

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ISRO plans on developing next high-resolution Earth observation satellite

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is currently planning to build the agency’s next remote sensing satellite, Cartosat-3, which is expected to replace GeoEye-1.

At present, the GeoEye-1 satellite produces the highest resolution Earth images taken by a commercial satellite. The spacecraft is capable of taking panchromatic images with a resolution of 0.41 meters. But under the regulations of the United States, commercially released images should be degraded to 0.5 meters.

WorldView-3 satellite is scheduled to be released on 2014 by DigitalGlobe, which merged with GeoEye at the beginning of 2013. The satellite is expected to produce images with a resolution of 0.31 meters. But ISRO said that the camera of Cartosat-3 satellite would produce even better images with a resolution of 0.25 meters and take the highest resolution images of the Earth.

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Europe to coordinate surveillance, tracking of space junk for satellite protection

In terms of space debris surveillance and tracking information, satellite operators across Europe mostly depend on the United States. In a move to protect their satellites, the European Commission has devised a new plan to fuse together the existing capacities of EU member states, like ground-based telescopes, radars and tracking (SST) data centers to become more self-sufficient.

The commission reported that about 600,000 space debris larger than one centimeter are circling the Earth, posing a threat to the subsystems and instruments aboard a satellite. These junks are joined by approximately 16,000 other objects larger than ten centimeters, which might cause permanent damage or even destroy a satellite in case of a collision.

The only way to prevent a satellite from colliding with other space objects is to monitor and catalogue the orbiting objects to keep track of their trajectory. As such, it can give an early warning to satellite operators to move their satellites and avoid collision.

The proposed Europe-wide SST service by the commission will be available to all public, commercial and military satellite operators, as well as public authorities concerned with civil security.

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Astrium looking for non-European collaborator on next Earth observation satellite development

Civil and military space systems provider Astrium is currently searching for a new partner outside of Europe for the development of the company’s new geostationary Earth observation satellite called GO-3S. One of the possible countries interested in the GO-3S project is Singapore. As a means of attracting possible associates, Astrium is also offering dedicated capacity and a commission of income from services provided by the satellite.

Gregory Pederson, director of sales and marketing at Astrium, noted that the 10-meter-long, 4.9-ton Earth observation satellite will cover roughly one quarter of the Earth’s surface using a three-meter resolution and a picture rate of five images per second.

The company said that Go-3S could potentially be capable of guiding its field of observation to a target zone in a matter of minutes to send images and video to the ground in real time. Astrium’s new Earth observation satellite is expected to have a lifespan of 15 years. Moreover, featuring a mirror approximately four meters in size able to observe 60 x 60 miles areas, Go-3S will be able to deliver 14 hours of uninterrupted coverage a day.

In a statement, Pederson said that Astrium is seeking partners and investors to work with them on the project, and that the company has already invested research and development money on the GO-3S satellite.

“Singapore for many reasons is one of the main countries interested in this,” Pederson added. “There is potential for technical cooperation and business cooperation. Generally speaking, Singapore is interested in projects that are leading the market. We are creating a new market segment in which an investor can be at the forefront of technology and business. That is something that suits Singapore perfectly.”

Astrium already finished a round of feasibility study on its new Earth observation satellite at the end of 2012, and is currently on the development phase until 2015. The company is expected to commence on manufacturing GO-3S in 2016 and operate it in space starting 2020.

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ISRO successfully sends Indo-French SARAL, six other satellites into orbit

The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has successfully sent the Indo-French oceanographic study satellite, SARAL, into space from its spaceport at Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh on Monday evening. Along with the SARAL satellite, ISRO’s PSLV rocket also launched six foreign mini and micro spacecrafts which includes Austria’s UniBRITE and BRITE; Canada’s NEOSSat and SAPPHIRE; Denmark’s AAUSAT3; and the United Kingdom’s STRaND.

A 410-kg satellite with two payloads, Argos and Altika, SARAL comes from the space agency CNES. The Indo-French satellite will be performing an oceanogprahic studies with the goal of improving the understanding of ocean state conditions. The Argos payload is a satellite-based data collection platform, while the Altika payload will aid in studying the height of sea surface,

This was the 23rd mission of the PSLV, which has an impeccable record of 21 consecutive successful flights. The recent launch is also the ninth time ISRO used the “core alone” variant of the rocket. ISRO has originally planned to perform the launch last December 12, 2012, but was delayed to carry out additional tests that to “address technical issues to ensure reliability.”

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