Satellite Innovation
SpaceNews is reporting from Mountain View, California, Oct. 8-10 to bring you special coverage of Satellite Innovation 2019.
GHGSat lauds performance of methane-monitoring satellite
GHGSat, the Canadian firm preparing to launch a constellation of methane-monitoring satellites, announced Oct. 8 that the sensor on its Iris satellite launched in early September detects methane emissions five times as well as its predecessor.
Schedule is king for C-band replacement satellites
Rather than pushing the state-of-the art, Boeing, Maxar Technologies and Northrop Grumman are emphasizing reliability in satellites they are manufacturing to help Intelsat and SES clear C-band spectrum, according to speakers at the Satellite Innovation 2020 conference.
Space debris a frequent topic at Satellite Innovation 2020
Tracking and avoiding the growing debris field in low Earth orbit was clearly on the minds of speakers on the first day of the Satellite Innovation 2020 conference.
Dankberg teases ViaSat-4 specs, still mulling MEO constellation
Viasat says that co-building its ViaSat-3 satellites with Boeing has given the company experience it can leverage to multiply the capacity achievable with a next-generation ViaSat-4 system.
Satellite industry slowly embracing the cloud
Satellite operators are partnering with cloud service providers, but not on everything.
Satellites could claim larger share of booming IoT market
Quilty Analytics is “quite bullish" on satellite IoT for incumbents and some new entrants, Partner Justin Cadman said Oct. 9 at the Satellite Innovation 2019 conference.
Manufacturers say wider range of satellites they build is stressing mission assurance
Manufacturers speaking Oct. 10 at the Satellite Innovation conference here said they are trying to evolve their approaches to mission assurance — making sure what they build doesn’t fail in orbit — so that they can respond to a wider swath of customers.
Earth observation customers want speedy satellite tasking
Companies supplying Earth observation data should speed up satellite tasking for customers whose demands are time sensitive, according to a panel of Earth observation experts at the Satellite Innovation 2019 conference.
Time is ripe for entrepreneurs to partner with U.S. national security space groups, says Fred Kennedy
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California – During this period of rapid change, space industry entrepreneurs should be sharing their ideas with U.S. national security space agencies, Fred Kennedy, former director of the U.S. Space Development Agency (SDA), said…
LeoLabs planning to triple number of radar sites for space debris tracking by early 2020s
“We really need to be fully online as a lot of these large constellations hit their peak stride. We are right on schedule with that.”
Space industry pressed to hire enough software engineers
Some space companies say their greatest hiring difficulty today is recruiting enough software engineers to work on their programs.
Inflection point within the year for megaconstellations?
An inflection point is coming in the next six to twelve months for the multibillion dollar satellite megaconstellations, when it will become apparent which ones are likely to succeed and which ones “will take a pause or exit,” Chris Baugh, Northern Sky Research president, said Oct. 9 at the Satellite Innovation 2019 conference.
Northrop Grumman’s satellite servicer MEV-1, Eutelsat satellite, launch on ILS Proton
An International Launch Services Proton rocket carried Northrop Grumman’s first satellite-servicing spacecraft and a communications satellite for Eutelsat to orbit Oct. 9.
Military turns to private sector for rapid space innovation
The Defense Department is trying to speed up access to innovative commercial technologies through a variety of contracting mechanisms like other transaction authority as well as pilot and pathfinder programs aimed at testing new technologies and system architectures.
SpaceX says rideshare missions will launch on time, even if partly empty
SpaceX plans to launch regular Falcon 9 rideshare missions starting in March and won’t delay launches for tardy customers, a company executive said Oct. 8.
GEOshare says ‘Mondo Condo’ satellite drawing interest from prospective tenants
As a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin, GEOShare is working to aggregate customers on a single Lockheed Martin A2100 bus that would supply between 250 and 500 gigabits of total capacity.
