NASA interested in strong commercial satellite-servicing industry in orbit

NASA is working on several projects to mature satellite servicing crosscutting technologies, including Restore-L, a technology demonstration project to utilize a robotic spacecraft to refuel an operational client. Other missions include the Robotic Refueling Mission 3 (RRM3) – which is developing technologies for cryogen – and Raven – a technology demonstration of state-of-the-art relative navigation capabilities.

These projects allow NASA to check important items off of its technology checklist to put humans closer to lunar exploration. NASA plans to infuse Satellite Servicing Projects Division (SSPD)-derived technologies and capabilities to meet the agency’s objectives for science and exploration. Candidate applications for individual satellite servicing capabilities could include on-orbit manufacturing and assembly, propellant depots, observatory servicing, and active orbital debris removal. NASA anticipates that SSPD-derived technologies and capabilities will help unlock numerous new and perhaps unforeseen opportunities in both commercial and government arenas.

In parallel with the development of satellite servicing technologies and the execution of various missions to prove these technologies, NASA is transferring satellite servicing technologies to interested domestic U.S. commercial entities to accelerate the commercial in-orbit robotic satellite servicing industry, as well as to help ensure the serviceability of future satellites. NASA is interested in a strong domestic, commercial satellite-servicing industry that could potentially provide the U.S. government with cost-effective operations.

NASA is hosting a series of industry day meetings to receive data from major SSPD project reviews. The initial industry day was held April 19, 2017, the second industry day was Jan. 30, 2018, the upcoming industry day is scheduled for Dec. 6 at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “This industry day encourages additional transfer of technology being developed by the SSPD,” NASA said in a Special Notice document released Tuesday. “The derived capabilities would facilitate servicing of spacecraft, plus ensure that future spacecraft can be easily serviced.” Future industry days will be held as additional technology progress is made.

Video: Satellite imagery highlights changes in US forests

Annual maps of the lower-48 United States produced from satellite data illustrate dynamic changes in U.S. forests from 1986-2010. Logging and hurricanes play a significant role in the Southeast, and fires and insect invasion damage forest canopy in the West.

Trees are one of the world's best absorbers of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Understanding how trees and forests change through time is one of the first steps to understanding how active they are in pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, which is of profound interest to scientists monitoring climate change.

Developed for the North American Forest Dynamics study, scientists combined 25 years of satellite data from the joint U.S. Geological Survey/NASA Landsat satellite program with information from the U.S. Forest Service to highlight where forest canopy was disturbed.

Yahsat signs agreement to purchase majority stake in Thuraya

Yahsat, a leading satellite operator based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has entered into an agreement to acquire a majority stake in the mobile satellite services operator Thuraya, also based in the UAE.

The acquisition of the UAE's first home grown satellite operator, Thuraya, will significantly expand Yahsat's current satellite solutions portfolio for both commercial and government verticals, as well as its global footprint.

The acquisition will set Yahsat on a new phase of growth, with Thuraya bringing 20 years of innovation and experience in the mobile satellite services market along with a rich portfolio of products and services complimented by a renowned brand.

Thuraya's two satellites, serving over 140 countries, will join the Yahsat fleet, expanding the group's satellite fleet to five. The combination of geostationary satellites operating in the C, Ka, Ku and L-bands will jointly cover Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South America, and Asia, providing a broad range of Fixed and Mobile Satellite Services spanning voice and data communications to both commercial and government sectors.

Analysts estimate over 8000 space payloads to be launched between 2017-2036

Coinciding with the Satellite 2017 Conference & Exhibition held in Washington, D.C., this week, Teal Group space analysts have identified 8,607 satellites, probes and capsules to be built and launched to earth or deep space orbits between 2017 and 2036. They estimate the value of these space payloads at more than $250 billion. Teal Group is an aerospace and defense consultancy based in Fairfax, Va.

The payload count for 2017-2036 reflects a 41 percent increase compared to the 5,095 payloads identified last year for 2016-2035 and 46.5 percent more than the 4,067 payloads for the 20-year look forward in 2015.  The trend in the future market for space payloads continues upward, and it is being driven largely by the introduction of thousands of small, nano and pico (mainly "Cubesats") commercial satellites designed to provide everything from broadband and mobile communications to meteorological, imaging and position location & tracking services.

Teal analysts identify 443 payloads "proposed" for launch in 2017, followed by 583 in 2018; 727 in 2019; 926 in 2020; 731 in 2021; 1,222 in 2022; 1,201 in 2023; 968 in 2024; 730 in 2025; and 298 in 2026.

In their latest update by spacecraft type, Teal analysts classified 6,786 (79 percent) of the payloads as commercial, 921 (11 percent) as civil (government non-military), 579 (6.5 percent) as military, and 321 (3.5 percent) as university and non-profit.

Of the payloads, more than 75 percent of them are proposed for low earth orbits; 17 percent for medium earth orbits; six percent to geostationary orbits; and the rest to deep space or elliptical orbits.

Small satellite market will exceed $1.42 billion in 2017

The small satellite market will exceed $1.42 billion in 2017 and is expected to flourish over the next few years due to continued market interest and also because of the sheer potential, according to a report published this month by Visiongain, a research firm based in London.

Key players developing small satellite technologies 
- Aerospace Corp.
- GeoOptics LLC
- Oneweb LLC
- ORBCOMM Inc.
- Planet Labs Inc.
- Spire Global Inc.
- Surrey Satellite Technology Limited
- The Boeing Company

Small satellite applications
- Meteorology
- Security/Surveillance
- Earthquake/Seismic Monitoring
- Scientific Research
- Other Applications

United Launch Alliance and Air Force improve launch processing

United Launch Alliance (ULA) and the U.S. Air Force have demonstrated a commitment to innovation and continuous improvement through implementation of Off-site Vertical Integration (OVI) of several structural elements for the Atlas V launch vehicle. OVI significantly reduces the number of lifting operations performed at the Vertical Integration Facility (VIF) at Cape Canaveral, taking them off the critical path and allowing for reduced time between launches. Relocating these operations to the Delta Operations Center (DOC), an indoor facility, also mitigates risk of weather-related processing delays.

"We are very pleased to have successfully completed the first Off-site Vertical Integration for the upcoming Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) launch," said Jim Sponnick, ULA vice president, Atlas and Delta Programs. "The associated one-week reduction in the launch-to-launch processing spans enables us to better meet the launch needs of our customers."

For a 500-series Atlas V rocket like the one launching the MUOS-4 mission, the OVI process accomplishes the integration of six structural elements along with the Centaur upper stage inside a test cell in the DOC, rather than conducting major portions of these complex hardware lifting and mating tasks outside at the VIF. In the last six years, there were 25 days of weather delays to launch vehicle stacking operations at the VIF.

One of the innovations required to enable OVI was the development of a transporter to safely move the five-story stack of rocket hardware approximately six miles from the DOC to the VIF. The transporter includes a tank pressure control system for the Centaur upper stage.

"The Off-site Vertical Integration process, including ground support equipment designs and operational procedures, were developed in collaboration with our Air Force customer to support launch manifest needs and enable continuous improvement to these critical launch operations," said Sponnick.

ULA's next satellite launch is the MUOS-4 mission for the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Navy, scheduled to launch Aug. 31 aboard an Atlas V from Space Launch Complex-41 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

PlanetiQ opens science and engineering facility in Boulder

PlanetiQ announced Monday the opening of its new science and engineering facility in Boulder, Colo. The facility includes a laboratory clean room where PlanetiQ will complete the development and manufacture of its first 12 Pyxis-RO flight instruments for the world's first commercial satellite constellation exclusively focused on weather, climate and space weather.

The facility is collocated with Blue Canyon Technologies, which is already working collaboratively with PlanetiQ to develop the initial set of 12 microsatellites scheduled for launch in late 2016 and 2017. Development and testing of the first two Pyxis-RO sensors has been underway since last spring.

The satellite-based Pyxis-RO will track Global Positioning System (GPS) signals traveling through Earth's atmosphere and convert them into dense, precise measurements of global temperature, pressure and water vapor using a technique called radio occultation (RO). The high sensitivity of Pyxis-RO allows it to routinely probe deep into the planetary boundary layer. In addition, Pyxis-RO is able to track signals from all four major satellite navigation systems--GPS, Galileo, Beidou and Glonass.

Among the satellite data sources currently ingested into computer weather models, RO has shown the most cost-effective, highest impact per observation on forecast accuracy. But only a sparse amount of radio occultation data exists today. With 12 satellites on orbit by the end of 2017 (expanding to 18 satellites by 2020.), PlanetiQ will provide more than 10 times the amount of data available from existing RO sensors, enabling dramatic improvements in weather forecasting, climate monitoring and space weather prediction.

Battery charger failure caused weather satellite to rupture in space

Officials from the U.S. Air Force 50th Space Wing have completed their operations review of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Flight 13 that was permanently shut down Feb. 3, 2015, precipitating a debris-causing event. The review determined there were no actions that could have been taken to prevent the incident. The mission is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on behalf of the U.S. Air Force.

The review into the unexpected loss of this satellite determined a failure of the battery charger as the likely cause. Analysis indicates one of the wiring harnesses lost functionality due to compression over a long period of time in the battery charge assembly. Once the harness was compromised, the exposed wires potentially caused a short in the battery power, leading to an overcharge situation with eventual rupture of the batteries.

Currently, the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., is tracking 147 pieces of debris from this incident ranging from baseball to basketball-sized objects, where the original satellite was about the size of a one-car garage. There are approximately 110 payloads in the same orbital regime as DMSP Flight 13. The JSpOC has had no reportable conjunctions between the DMSP Flight 13 debris and any of these objects.

"In accordance with our ongoing efforts to protect the space domain, the JSpOC will continue to monitor this debris along with all of the items in the space catalog in order to enhance the long-term sustainability, safety and security of the space environment," said Col. John Giles, JSpOC director.

DMSP Flight 13 was originally launched on March 24, 1995. Despite its original four-year design life, Flight 13 provided service for almost two decades and on Aug. 6, 2014 became the first operational DMSP satellite to reach 100,000 revolutions around the Earth.

Honeywell technology enables faster satellite-based search and rescue response

Honeywell announced Thursday that its Global Tracking solution has passed the final acceptance test for use on the European Space Agency's (ESA) Galileo search and rescue program by demonstrating dramatically reduced emergency response times. Galileo is a pan-European geo-positioning satellite system operated by the ESA and funded by the European Union.

Honeywell Global Tracking, part of Honeywell's Scanning and Mobility business, is working in partnership with the Aerospace & Defense division of Capgemini, the prime contractor for the Galileo search and rescue program, to deliver a high-precision positioning system that is fully compatible with the international standard, which is known as the Cospas-Sarsat standard. Tests using the Honeywell system have proven that the time from beacon transmission to detection and processing has been reduced from several hours to a few minutes - often the difference between life and death in an emergency situation.

The international Cospas-Sarsat program is a satellite-based search and rescue distress alert detection and information distribution system, best known for detecting and locating emergency beacons activated by aircraft, ships and remotely located people in distress. Honeywell's industry-leading satellite tracking technology, which detects faint alerts sent by emergency beacons around the world using a combination of Doppler curves, noise reduction, and advanced signal processing, quickly calculates the exact location of the beacon and sends the results to the relevant mission control center in the region.

"Up until now, Cospas-Sarsat has relied on satellites in low and high orbits, but medium orbits with satellites such as Galileo are better for search and rescue purposes; they combine a wide field of view with strong Doppler shift, making it more likely a distress signal is pinpointed promptly and accurately," says Fermin Alvarez, ground station and fielding engineer with ESA.

Kaine Touts Export Opportunities At Orbital’s Satellite Plant - Leesburg Today Online—Daily News Coverage of Loudoun County, Leesburg, Ashburn: Business

Kaine Touts Export Opportunities At Orbital’s Satellite Plant - Leesburg Today Online—Daily News Coverage of Loudoun County, Leesburg, Ashburn: Business

Satellite image shows annual expansion of Antarctic sea ice

On Sunday, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this natural-color image of sea ice off the coast of East Antarctica’s Princess Astrid Coast.

White areas close to the continent are sea ice, while white areas in the northeast corner of the image are clouds.

The image was acquired after Antarctic sea ice had passed its annual minimum extent (reached on Feb. 20), and had resumed expansion toward its maximum extent (usually reached in September).

Strong future for satellite services in Sub-Saharan Africa

According to Euroconsult's newly released report, Prospects for Satellite Communications & Broadcasting in Africa, overall usage for satellite capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa increased 11 percent over 2009-2014 despite the spread of terrestrial fiber networks and the decrease of international trunking. Euroconsult further anticipates an 11 percent growth for capacity leased over the next decade, for a total of close to 200 gigabits per second of traffic flowing over satellite.
 
"The tripling of TV signals in the last five years, growth in cellular backhaul requirements and the addition of more than 15,000 VSATs for various vertical segments have all contributed to the emergence of new requirements," said Pacome Revillon, CEO of Euroconsult and editor of the report. "The significant addition of satellite capacity supply has resulted in a fill rate decrease and in greater competition and pricing pressure."
Multiple drivers support a strong future increase in the use of satellite communication services, including:

• Digital TV growth is still only in its early phase; the transition process to digital terrestrial television has just begun. In parallel, satellite pay-TV, despite the signing of close to 10 million subscribers in the last ten years, is only beginning to penetrate the market.
• Mobile penetration keeps increasing along with universal access requirements, while 3G and potentially 4G expansion will create new new connectivity requirements.
• A variety of segments, such as oil & gas, banking, mining, and government networks will require more connectivity as operations either diversify or expand geographically.
• A number of new enterprise hot spot markets are evolving particularly in East and West Africa in addition to the historically strong VSAT markets like South Africa, Nigeria, Angola, Kenya and Tanzania. This should contribute to overall market growth across Sub-Saharan Africa
• Broadband access for consumers and enterprises offers new opportunities on the back of new HTS capacities and services. Also, the usage of HTS capacity for trunking should increase for landlocked countries like DR Congo and South Sudan at least in the short to medium term as fiber availability remains limited and unreliable
  

For operators, the ability to create new differentiators will be key in a context of large capacity supply, which includes the development of video neighborhoods, of selected service platforms and the co-development of projects with local service providers and end-users. For service and equipment providers, the rollout of more sophisticated and hybrid solutions offered through domestic hubs and a potential consolidation of service providers should contribute to market growth. The emergence of new free-to-air and pay-TV platforms should also shape the future African TV market.

Video: Boeing confirms new GPS satellite in orbit and healthy

The ninth Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF reached orbit about three hours, 20 minutes after launching Wednesday aboard a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., and sent signals confirming its health.

“Boeing, ULA and the Air Force successfully launched four GPS IIFs last year, the highest operations tempo in over 20 years, and today’s mission marks the first of three launches planned in 2015,” said Dan Hart, vice president, Boeing Government Space Systems. “As they enter service, the IIFs are advancing and modernizing the GPS constellation by improving accuracy, signal strength and anti-jamming capability. We are also introducing the L-5 civilian ‘safety-of-life’ signal intended mainly for aviation and transportation.”

The GPS IIF-9, designated as SVN-71, will undergo on-orbit testing and checkout before beginning full operation.

Boeing has served as a prime contractor on GPS since the program’s inception, contributing multiple generations of GPS satellites and accruing more than 525 years of on-orbit operation.

Air Force taking steps to correct GPS satellite error

A Global Positioning System (GPS) message indexing issue was recently identified that affects a limited number of active GPS IIF satellites, but does not degrade the accuracy of the GPS signal received by users around the globe, Air Force officials said on Monday.

The result is an occasional broadcast not in accordance with U.S. technical specifications. The issue appears to be related to the ground software that builds and uploads messages transmitted by the GPS constellation during regular system operations, although the Air Force continues to investigate all possible causes.

Although the issue was brought to light in the last few days, a close examination of archived GPS message data reveals that the message indexing error has gone unnoticed since 2013.  Air Force Space Command has implemented a workaround to prevent further message indexing violations and is taking steps to permanently correct the error.

GPS, a large unaddressed critical infrastructure problem

If the complex satellite system that supports our country's global positioning system ever goes down, there's no backup. Cell phones, navigation systems, timing services and even critical defense programs are at risk.

Industry leaders from Google, Exelis, UrsaNav and other companies that depend on disaster-proof location and timing services are meeting at the annual Resilient Navigation and Timing (RNT) Foundation's dinner at the Metropolitan Club in Washington, DC on April 8.

The dinner's keynote speaker is Google's Vint Cerf, the "father of the Internet.” Terry Halvorsen, the CIO for the Department of Defense will also be speaking.

"The need for a difficult-to-disrupt system to complement the Global Positioning System (GPS) has been well known for years,” says RNT Foundation President Dana Goward. “GPS is exceptionally accurate and dependable, yet jamming, spoofing, cyber attacks and other forms of interference appear to be growing in frequency and severity. This has the potential for devastating effects on our lives and economic activity.”

In the meantime, the U.S. Air Force is prepared the ninth Global Positioning System (GPS) 2F satellite for launch on March 25 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

SES and Global Eagle Entertainment sign services deal on three satellites

Satellite operator SES and Global Eagle Entertainment, a worldwide leading provider of content, connectivity and digital media solutions to airlines, announced Monday they have signed important capacity deals for services on three SES satellites. These agreements are part of a strategic partnership to deliver in-flight connectivity and services to airline passengers around the world.

Under the latest agreements, GEE will utilize Ku-band wide beam and High Throughput Satellite (HTS) spot beam capacity aboard the SES-12, SES-14 and SES-15 satellites. The three spacecraft, currently under construction, are scheduled for launch in 2017.

SES-14 and SES-15 offer a complementary coverage over busy air travel routes across the Americas and North Atlantic regions, the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, while SES-12 will serve the burgeoning aeronautical market across Asia and the Middle East. As GEE expands its services to new airlines and regions, it can quickly and seamlessly leverage capacity across the global SES fleet of more than 50 satellites.

“Our collaborative work with GEE is aimed at enabling this in-flight connectivity solutions leader to go anywhere it wants to grow and innovate to meet the needs of airlines and the connectivity demands for passengers on the move,” said Ferdinand Kayser, chief commercial officer of SES.

About SES-12, SES-14, and SES-15

SES-14 is a high-powered hybrid satellite with C- and Ku-band wide beam coverage and both Ku- and Ka-band HTS coverage across the Americas and North Atlantic region. SES-15 will provide complementary coverage over North America, enabling SES to serve its leading aeronautical customers and serve other traffic intensive data applications such as government, VSAT networks and maritime. SES-12 will expand SES’s capabilities to provide Mobility and HTS data connectivity services in the Asia-Pacific region, along with direct-to-home broadcasting and VSAT.

Video: First all-electric satellite for Eutelsat

The first all-electric satellite for Europe's Eutelsat communications company is scheduled for launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket Sunday at 10:50 p.m. EST. The Falcon 9 rocket is provided by Space Exploration Technologies Corp., also known as SpaceX.

Built by U.S.-based Boeing Defense and Space, the new Eutelsat 115 West B satellite arrived in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on Jan 25.



Equipped with 12 C-band and 34 Ku-band transponders connected to four service areas, Eutelsat 115 West B will extend reach of the Americas to markets in Alaska and Canada, replacing the Eutelsat 115 West A satellite that operates in an inclined orbit at 114.9 degrees West. The new satellite will focus in particular on serving clients providing data services, including broadband access, cellular backhaul, VSAT solutions and social connectivity.

GPS satellite operating properly after launch

A Boeing-built Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF satellite, launched Friday, has sent the signals to controllers that confirm it is currently operating properly within the constellation that millions of people rely on for timing and navigation information.

GPS IIF-7 was launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas-5 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Fla. It is the seventh of 12 such satellites Boeing has built for the U.S. Air Force, and the third on-orbit delivery this year.

Boeing and the Air Force will complete the full on-orbit checkout of the satellite next month. The GPS IIFs offer improved signal accuracy, better anti-jamming capability, longer design life and the new civilian L5 signal.

Created by the Department of Defense to enhance U.S. military warfighting capability, GPS is available for use, free of charge, to anyone with a GPS receiver. U.S. and allied military forces use GPS devices in virtually every system to improve their capabilities and effectiveness. From finance to farming to tracking packages, use by the civilian community continues to grow rapidly and new commercial applications are continuously being developed.

GPS IIF-7, launched Friday, is the seventh in a series of next-generation GPS satellites and will join a worldwide timing and navigation system utilizing satellites positioned in orbit above the Earth's surface. The sixth GPS IIF was launched May 16. GPS IIF-8, slated for launch during the fourth quarter, arrived at Cape Canaveral on July 16 to undergo final launch preparations.

New imaging satellite will be able to identify mailboxes from space

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. has delivered the next-generation commercial remote sensing satellite built for DigitalGlobe to a launch site at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The WorldView-3 satellite is slated to fly aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket in mid-August for DigitalGlobe, a leading provider of commercial high-resolution earth observation and advanced geospatial products.

The WorldView-3 spacecraft passed a full suite of environmental, functional and performance tests in preparation for integration with the launch vehicle, along with thorough pre-ship reviews by Ball Aerospace and DigitalGlobe.

WorldView-3 is the first multi-payload, super-spectral, high-resolution commercial satellite for earth observations and advanced geospatial data. Operating at an expected altitude of 383 miles (617 kilometers), WorldView-3 will collect imagery with 12 inch resolution (31 centimeters). "At 30-60 centimeters, you can easily discern key features such as manholes and mailboxes," according to DigitalGlobe's website. This level of resolution performance would be fundamentally impossible without the four-foot (1.1-meter) aperture telescope and the primary visible/SWIR sensor built by Exelis, which allows for a breadth of applications unmatched by smaller, lower-performance satellites. DigitalGlobe recently received permission from the U.S. Department of Commerce to sell its higher resolution satellite imagery, and once WorldView-3 is operational, the company will be able to deliver imagery with significantly greater clarity and spectral depth than anything else on the commercial market.

WorldView-3 also carries a Ball Aerospace-built atmospheric instrument called CAVIS, which stands for Clouds, Aerosol, water Vapor, Ice, and Snow. CAVIS will monitor the atmosphere and provide correction data when WorldView-3 images earth objects through haze, aerosols or other atmospheric obscurants.

The range of customer applications enabled by the DigitalGlobe constellation is greatly expanded by WorldView-3's ability to sense both the visible spectrum as well as deeper into the infrared spectrum. Its data-rich imagery will enable customers to search for new sources of minerals and fuels, manage forests and farms, and accelerate DigitalGlobe's creation of Geospatial Big Data - a living inventory of the surface of the earth.

WorldView-3 builds upon WorldView-2 and WorldView-1 technology by carrying forward the satellites' advanced Control Moment Gyroscopes (CMGs). The CMGs reorient a satellite over a desired collection area in 4-5 seconds, compared to 30-45 seconds needed for traditional reaction wheels. This enables the WorldView satellites to collect large areas far faster than competing satellites.

Air Force seeks aerial communications relay to support warfighter

The U.S. Air Force uses satellite communications for many of its missions. These beyond-line-of-sight networks support a variety of applications including voice, file transfer, text chat, and range extension of tactical data links. But satellite communication systems are a limited resource “and do not have the capacity to support all of the warfighter's information exchange needs," the Air Force said in contract documents released Tuesday. “To exacerbate the issue, during times of conflict, these communications could be degraded or denied. An alternate communications path through the aerial layer would add resilience to these networks.” [Full story]

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