December 2015

Artist’s rendition of an Inmarsat 6 satellite. Photo: Airbus Defence and Space [Via Satellite 12-24-2015] Inmarsat has awarded Airbus Defence and Space a contract to build the first two mobile communications satellites for Inmarsat’s sixth-generation fleet (I-6). The contract, valued in the region of $600 million for construction of the two satellites, will see Airbus…

An Atlas 5 rocket prepped for NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission. Photo: NASA/Kim Shiflett [Via Satellite 12-24-2015] United Launch Alliance (ULA) announced Dec. 23 that the company had ordered additional RD-180 engines for Atlas 5 missions to serve existing and potential civil and commercial launch customers. The new order of the Russian-built engines will…

Sprinkler irrigation in the High Plains. Photo: Texas A&M AgriLife Research/ Kay Ledbetter (Flickr) [Via Satellite 12-24-2015] Smart Rural, a specialist agricultural Information and Communication Technology (ICT) company, has signed a contract with Avanti Communications, to provide Ka-band satellite capacity for farmers in Spain and Portugal. For the agriculture market, Smart Rural has developed a…

An SSL facility. Photo: Via Satellite. [Via Satellite 12-24-2015] Telesat has procured its next satellite, Telstar 18 Vantage/Apstar 5C, from SSL. The satellite will operate from 138 degrees east and will support both Telesat and partner APT Satellite, which will make use of approximately 36.2 transponders for the whole lifetime of the spacecraft. Telstar 18…

Guy Perez, CTO of OHB Systems [Via Satellite 12-24-2015] The supervisory board of OHB System AG, a subsidiary of OHB SE, has appointed Guy Perez to its management board as Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and head of the company’s telecommunication satellite unit, effective Jan. 1, 2016. Perez has more than 30 years of experience in…

A CalAmp facility. Photo: CalAmp [Via Satellite 12-23-2015] CalAmp, a communications specialist for Mobile Resource Management (MRM) and Machine-to-Machine (M2M) markets, experienced a boost in revenues from its satellite division, though the company expects this to be a onetime event. During CalAmp’s 2016 third quarter, which ended Nov. 30, 2015, the company reported $11.8 million…

Artist’s rendition of a Comsat NG satellite. Photo: Thales Alenia Space. [Via Satellite 12-23-2015] The French defense procurement agency, Direction générale de l’armement (DGA), part of the Defense Ministry, has selected a consortium formed by Thales Alenia Space (65 percent) and Airbus Defence and Space (35 percent) to build and deliver Comsat NG, the country’s…

An Eni FPSO operating near Angola. Photo: ITC Global [Via Satellite 12-23-2015] ITC Global, an independent unit of Panasonic Avionics that provides satellite communications to remote and harsh environments, has been awarded two multi-million dollar three year contracts to provide remote offshore connectivity to five Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessels based in Western…

OG2 satellites stacked on their ESPA grande ring prior to launch. Photo: SNC. [Via Satellite 12-23-2015] Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) has successfully completed the solar array deployment and initial on-orbit checkout phase for all 11 satellites launched for Orbcomm’s Generation 2 (OG2) Mission 2, which launched Dec. 21 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. SNC is…

KVH Mini-VSAT Broadband Map. Photo: KVH Industries [Via Satellite 12-23-2015] KVH Industries has expanded the capacity of its mini-VSAT Broadband for connectivity at sea with a new satellite beam over the North Atlantic Ocean region, and a second new beam across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). The North America beam, which includes Canada’s Hudson Bay, doubles the mini-VSAT broadband…