April 2019

The attempt by Israeli company SpaceIL to soft-land its Beresheet spacecraft on the moon’s surface has ended in failure. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041100

Intelsat-29e is drifting in orbit after two anomalies. The satellite "experienced damage" on 7 April that resulted in a fuel leak. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041101

EXOLAUNCH, a Germany-based launch services provider and cluster integrator for small satellites, and Virgin Orbit announced the signing of an MOU for transporting EXOLAUNCH customers’ payloads on dedicated and rideshare missions with Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne as early as 2020. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041102

Harris Corporation has received a US$243 million contract from Lockheed Martin to provide fully digital navigation signals for the first two GPS III Follow-On (GPS IIIF) satellites – to deliver stronger signals, with greater operational flexibility. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041103

RUAG Space will deliver a navigation receiver for NASA’s climate mission PACE, which is scheduled to launch in 2022. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041104

Intelsat said it lost communication with its Intelsat 29e satellite, made by Boeing Co., that continues to affect wireless operator, aeronautical and maritime customers in the North Atlantic, Latin America and Caribbean regions. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041000

BlackSky, a provider of geospatial intelligence, satellite imaging, and global monitoring services, announced it has successfully achieved several significant on-orbit milestones of its first two Earth-imaging spacecraft, Global-1 and -2. Demonstrating the full operational performance of the spacecraft, the company showcased several images of economic points of interest taken by the first two smallsats in…

A new, first-of-its-kind space weather model reliably predicts space storms of high-energy particles that are harmful to many satellites and spacecraft orbiting in the Earth’s outer radiation belt. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041002

TESAT, KSAT and GomSpace have partnered up to introduce full optical communications capability for new small satellite missions and space-based services. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019041003

U.S. small satellite launch company Rocket Lab has announced the next evolution of its mission services: the in-house designed and built Photon satellite platform. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2019040900