SES has selected Airbus, Boeing and Orbital ATK to build satellites that will provide telecommunications services to the Americas, the north Atlantic Ocean region and Europe, Space News reported Monday. Peter de Selding writes that Boeing’s space and intelligence systems business and Airbus’ defense and space segment will provide all-electric-propulsion satellites for commercial fixed, mobile and aeronautical services. The […] More

Lockheed Martin has launched an optical payload into space aboard a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spacecraft to capture a single-view image of the Earth’s sunlit side. The Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera instrument is designed to help scientists monitor clouds and atmospheric particles in hemispheres in order to develop models for storms, droughts, dust, pollution and […] More

Rebecca Cowen-Hirsch, a senior vice president at Inmarsat, oversees direction and policy functions for the British satellite services provider’s U.S. government business unit. The nearly three-decade aerospace and defense veteran is also a former member of the Senior Executive Service and served as a program executive officer at the Defense Information Systems Agency before she entered the private […] More

Vic See Jr. serves as a senior vice president at Integrity Applications Inc., where he is also a member of IAI’s executive leadership team. See is a 29-year Navy veteran who served as a helicopter pilot and member of the Aerospace Engineering Duty Officer community. He joined IAI in 2009 after service as leader of the Naval […] More

TE SubCom has won a $12.3 million contract to build a fiber-optic cable technology to link U.S. Navy sonar systems on the ocean floor to surveillance facilities ashore, Military & Aerospace Electronics reported Monday. John Keller writes the company will lay approximately 963 miles of submarine cable that is designed to interface with the Integrated […] More

Inmarsat has started offering wideband communications services to U.S. military customers through the company’s mobile satellite networks. The Inmarsat-5 Global Xpress satcom coverage has been expanded to deliver Ka-band connectivity for aeronautical and ground missions across the Indian Ocean, the company said Monday. GX employs fixed and steerable beam technology that is built to complement […] More

NASA will deploy an ocean winds sensor technology in space with the goal of helping scientists predict storms as well as study changes in the weather. The agency expects to send the ISS-RapidScat instrument aboard a SpaceX capsule from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida no earlier than Sept. 19, NASA said Monday. ISS-RapidScat […] More

A DigitalGlobe commercial Earth-observing satellite was sent into space Wednesday aboard an Atlas V rocket launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. WorldView-3 is built to capture images at a multispectral resolution of 0.31 meters and has multiple shortwave infrared bands that will work to spot objects in the presence of fog, smoke, dust and […] More

Northrop Grumman has won a potential $9 million contract to supply a navigation sensor technology to South Korea’s national space agency for geostationary satellites built to monitor space weather, ocean and atmospheric conditions. The company’s Scalable Space Inertial Reference Units will work to deliver continuous rotational data on South Korea’s GEO‑KOMPSAT-2A and 2B environmental satellites, […] More

Unmanned aerial system builders have been developing smaller drones for non-military fields such as emergency response, agriculture and energy sector inspection, Military Aerospace & Electronics reported Monday. John Keller reports in a video blog from an Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International event last week that there is a growing trend toward smaller UAV technology […] More

Exelis has delivered the first of four meteorological payloads for a future U.S. weather satellite of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, moving the program forward toward the planned satellite launch in 2016, Exelis said Tuesday Eric Webster, Exelis Geospatial Systems vice president for weather systems, said, “Delivery . . . is an important milestone because it […] More