Government/Military

NASA has unveiled its plans to develop the technology and infrastructure to retrieve asteroids for human research.

The U.S. Air Force has selected Ball Aerospace & Technologies to perform risk reduction work on the next generation of microwave sounding and imaging instruments for the Weather Satellite Follow-on program.

STMicroelectronics has announced that its Teseo II single-chip satellite-tracking ICs performed successfully in the first ground location test using Europe’s independent navigation system, Galileo.

MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates has signed a CA$8.3 million contract with Canada’s Department of National Defense (DND) to extend its operational support of DND’s Automated Airline Hosting and Aircraft Tasking System (AAHATS).

The University of Hawaii is planning the first satellite launch from the islands of Hawaii using the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai. The military has used the facility to test missiles but never a satellite.

The Obama administration’s Fiscal Year 2014 budget request presented this week included a proposal to pursue an environmental satellite championed by Al Gore.

Boeing is introducing a new line of small satellites through its research arm Boeing Phantom Works. The Phantom Phoenix line of satellites would weight up to 1,000 kilos and can be adapted for short-term experiments or operational missions lasting seven or more years.

Lockheed Martin has announced successful integration of two of the most important components onto its fourth Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) satellite for the U.S. Navy.

The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has announced its oldest Earth observation satellite Radarsat-1 is unlikely to recover fully from an anomaly experienced on March 29.

Matt Perkins, CEO of Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL), has been elected Vice-Chair of the U.K. Industry Association for Space (UKspace), the trade association of the UK space industry.