Author: starpathwp-production
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NASA’s InSight lander bows out after ground-shaking Mars mission
NASA’s InSight lander used its robotic arm to capture this final “selfie” of the mission in April 2022. Dust is visible on the lander’s two solar panels. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Dust-laden solar panels and darker Martian skies have finally sealed the fate of NASA’s InSight mission, the agency announced Wednesday, after the intrepid lander delivered its…
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FCC Seeks Comment on Streamlining the Satellite Licensing Process
The FCC is working to improve the licensing procedures for commercial satellites. On Wednesday, the FCC decided to seek comments on changes to its policies and rules for satellite applications. This commission said there are an “unprecedented” number of applications for new satellite systems and it wants to better handle them. Specifically, the FCC said…
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Airbus Delivers First Sentinel-4 Air Monitoring Instrument to ESA
Airbus Defence and Space has successfully delivered the first Sentinel-4/UVN (Ultraviolet, Visible and Near Infra-Red) multispectral instrument flight model to the European Space Agency (ESA). It will be integrated into the Meteosat Third Generation Sounder (MTG-S1) satellite next year. The instrument will continuously monitor key air quality trace gases and aerosols from geostationary orbit with…
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Terran 1 and Terran R testing in full swing before Relativity’s debut
The first fully integrated static fire test of Relativity Space’s Terran 1 rocket is expected any day now as the company prepares for its first-ever launch from Florida. Following a series of tests of the rocket’s first stage, the second stage and nosecone were assembled, and the entire vehicle has now rolled back to the…
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Av-Comm Space and Defence Acquires R G Systems to Expand Large Antenna Capabilities
Av-Comm Space and Defence is pleased to announce it has acquired the Central Coast-based large antenna specialist R G Systems. Australian-owned R G Systems has been operating since 2005 and during that time has installed and refurbished more than 100 large antenna systems for defence and civil satellite communications customers. This strategic acquisition of R G…
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mPower Technology Selected by Gravitics as Solar Module Supplier for StarMax Space Station Module
Innovative solar technology company, mPower Technology announced that its DragonSCALESTM solar power system will be used as the solar power solution for the Gravitics StarMaxTM space station modules. Gravitics is leading the way in a new era of human presence in space with the introduction of StarMax – a flexible-use space station module that provides…
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NASA calls an end to Mars InSight lander mission, with Aerojet getting in on tributes
One of the InSight lander’s last selfies was sent back from Mars in April. (NASA Photo) Four years after engineers cheered the landing of the robotic InSight spacecraft on Mars, NASA today declared an end to the $830 million quake-detecting mission. In a mission update, NASA said the control team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory…
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Two Pléiades Neo Earth-imaging satellites lost in failure of Europe’s Vega C rocket
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 12 p.m. EST (1700 GMT) with details from news conference. Illustration of the Vega C rocket with its Zefiro 40 second stage firing. Credit: Arianespace The final two spacecraft in Airbus’s four-satellite, 600 million-euro commercial Pléiades Neo Earth observation fleet crashed into the Atlantic Ocean shortly after launch from French Guiana Tuesday…
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Arianespace Suffers a Launch Failure on the Second Vega C Mission
Arianespace’s Vega C launch on Tuesday night failed, losing two Pléiades Neo satellites for customer Airbus. This was just the second launch for Vega C, Europe’s new light-lift rocket. Arianespace CTO Pierre-Yves Tissier described the Dec. 20 mission, Flight VV22, from French Guiana in a Wednesday press conference. The first stage ignited nominally, and stage…