News on key developments at SupremeSAT, and general news on the Space and Satellite industry from across the web
On 11 February 2020, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft safely executed a flyover of the backup sample collection site Osprey as part of the mission’s activities in orbit around asteroid Bennu. The Canadian OSIRIS-REx Laser Altimeter (OLA) did not operate as expected during the 11-hour event and has been declared inoperable. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020030402
The 3D-printed thrust chamber assembly of the methane-fuelled M10 rocket engine has passed its first series of hot firing tests. The M10 engine will power the upper stage of future Vega evolutions from 2025. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020030300
The propulsion unit of the ExoMars lander module has passed firing tests, the Lavochkin Research and Production Association said in a statement. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020030301
A new machine-learning computer model accurately predicts damaging radiation storms caused by the Van Allen belts two days prior to the storm, the most advanced notice to date, according to a new paper in the journal Space Weather. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020030302
Russia’s State Space Corporation Roskosmos has scheduled the first launch from the Vostochny spaceport in 2020 for the end of April, Roskosmos Chief Dmitry Rogozin said. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020030200
Swedish Space Corporation, SSC, and German space tech company Isar Aerospace have signed a long-term contract for testing of a new generation of European rocket engines for minilaunchers at Esrange Space Center in Sweden. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020030201
Quantum – the software-programmable satellite ordered by Eutelsat under an ESA Partnership Project – has successfully completed its mechanical test campaign at the Airbus facilities in Toulouse. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020030202
Telecommunications operator Orange will be the first telco to adopt O3b mPOWER, SES’s next-generation Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite communications system, to exponentially ramp up its consumer and business services, starting in the Central African Republic. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020030203
The launch of a Proton-M carrier rocket with the Ekspress-80 and Ekspress-103 communications satellites from Baikonur cosmodrome is scheduled for 31 March, the Reshetnev Information Satellite Systems Company said. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020030100
NASA has selected SpaceX to provide launch services for the agency’s Psyche mission. The Psyche mission currently is targeted to launch in July 2022 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. http://www.sat-nd.com/archive/?id=2020030101