Telecom satellites are set to enter a new age, as the European Space Agency (ESA), Eutelsat and Airbus Defence & Space collaborate in the Quantum programme, which departs from the traditional, custom, one-off approach to building satellites by offering a new and generic payload design.
The European Space Agency (ESA) announced that an Ariane 5 rocket has launched four additional Galileo satellites, accelerating deployment of the new satellite navigation system.
An innovative antenna assembly destined to serve Europe’s coming generation of weather satellites has been put to the test within ESA’s cavernous Hertz chamber, which can reproduce the boundless reaches of space. Developed by Thales Alenia Space Italy, the UHF and L-band combination patch-array antenna has been designed to operate aboard Meteosat Third Generation Imaging satellites.
On Monday 5 October two small satellites (CubeSats), designed and built in Denmark, were released from the International Space Station to begin their mission in space.
The BepiColombo European spacecraft, by Airbus Defence and Space is undergoing final functional tests at the Thales Alenia Space plant in Turin, Italy and will be shipped to ESA’s European Space Research and Technology Center.
The European Space Agency has announced that the in-orbit validation of Galileo has been achieved: Europe now has the operational nucleus of its own satellite navigation constellation in place – the world’s first civil-owned and operated satnav system