August 2015

Buenos Aires, Argentina. Photo: Jesus Alexander Reyes Sánchez [Via Satellite 08-21-2015] Direct to Home (DTH) broadcasting appears to be outpacing terrestrial broadcasts in Latin America, according to Juan Salleras, EVP and general manager at Encompass Digital Media Latin America. A mainstay of the satellite industry, DTH is growing in popularity as consumers distanced from densely…

Dmitry Medvedev visits the Amur Region. Photo: Government of the Russian Federation [Via Satellite 08-21-2015] Russia is pushing to have the first launch mission from the Vostochny Space Center conducted by December this year, according to an Aug. 20 statement from the Russian government. The government has created and approved a list of the minimal…

Arianespace’s VA225 Ariane 5 dual launch mission for Intelsat and Eutelsat. Photo: Arianespace [Via Satellite 08-21-2015] Arianespace launched two satellites on Aug. 20, one for Intelsat and one for Eutelsat, aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. Eutelsat 8 West B, riding in the upper payload position, deployed first, 28 minutes into the flight. Intelsat 34 deployed…

A SANSA satellite dish. Photo: SANSA [Via Satellite 08-21-2015] Airbus Defence and Space has completed an imagery project covering all of South Africa in three months using the Spot 6 and Spot 7 twin satellites. A Direct Receiving Station (DRS) at the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) enabled coverage of the 1,221,000 square kilometer…

[Via Satellite 08-21-2015] E2v has launched a new grade of high-performance microprocessors based on the multicore processors from the Freescale QorIQ family. These processors produce tens of Gflop (1 billion floating-point operations per second) of performance, and are radiation hardened for space grade reliability. E2v’s quality checks include inspection procedures, screening, dynamic burn-in and qualification…

JAXA’s HTV 5/Kounotori 5 launch. Photo: JAXA [Via Satellite 08-20-2015] On Aug. 19 an H2B rocket from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) successfully launched the H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV) 5 to the International Space Station (ISS), delivering more than 4.5 tons in supplies including food and water, equipment, and…

Barry Matsumori on a panel with Johann-Dietrich Woerner in May 2014. Photo: ESA/P. Sebirot [Via Satellite 08-20-2015] Barry Matsumori, formerly the senior vice president of sales and business development at SpaceX, has joined Virgin Galactic’s satellite launch team. With Virgin Galactic, Matsumori holds the title of senior vice president of business development and advanced concepts for…

GPIM satellite. Photo: Ball Aerospace [Via Satellite 08-20-2015] Aerojet Rocketdyne has delivered the environmentally friendly propellant propulsion subsystem to Ball Aerospace for NASA’s Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM). Ball Aerospace, prime contractor for GPIM, will integrate the propulsion subsystem, consisting of a propellant tank and five 1-newton thrusters, into its BCP 100 spacecraft bus. NASA’s…

Nice, France. Photo: Kurt Bauschardt [Via Satellite 08-20-2015] Satellite Solutions Worldwide (SSW) a communications company specializing in rural, last-mile satellite broadband, has acquired Sat2Way, a satellite broadband provider in France for €825,000 ($925,000) in cash. The purchase, for 100 percent of the share capital, grows SSW’s presence in France, where the company has more than…

DirecTV’s 4K Genie Mini. Photo: DirecTV [Via Satellite 08-20-2015] DirecTV, now part of AT&T, is offering a new Set Top Box (STB), the 4K Genie Mini, to expand the number of customers who can access 4K movies without a “DirecTV ready” 4K TV. The new STB offers full Genie and 4K capability, and also supports…