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Orbital Wins $8M NASA Satellite Contract
Dulles, Va., - Dec 1, 1997 - Orbital Sciences Corporation announced today that it has been selected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for an $8.3 million contract to design, build and test the Active Cavity Radiometer Irradiance Monitor satellite (ACRIMSAT). The spacecraft will be based on the company's flight-proven MiniStar satellite platform. Under the contract, Orbital's responsibilities include the integration of the JPL- supplied ACRIM instrument with the spacecraft bus, the performance of environmental testing and the supply of a ground station to JPL. In addition to the satellite and ground segment of the ACRIMSAT program, NASA is considering Orbital's Pegasus rocket to launch the satellite in 1999. Mr. Robert R. Lovell, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Orbital's Space Systems Group, said, ``We are delighted that NASA selected us to build the ACRIMSAT satellite and are anxious to make another important contribution to the national space agency's study of planet Earth. Our extensive involvement in the ACRIMSAT program, as the supplier of the satellite, ground station and possibly the launch vehicle, reinforces the success of Orbital's corporate strategy of offering fully integrated space technology capabilities to the space industry.'' ACRIMSAT's five-year mission to perform solar observations is part of the Earth Observing System (EOS), which is central to NASA's Mission to Planet Earth initiative. EOS is made up of a science segment, a data system, and a space segment that includes a series of polar-orbiting and low-inclination satellites that perform long-term observations of the Earth that NASA expects to continue for a minimum of 15 years. EOS will enable multidisciplinary study of the Earth's interrelated, life-enabling processes, involving the atmosphere, oceans, land surfaces and polar regions. The spacecraft bus on which ACRIMSAT will be based exceeds the program's design requirements resulting in high reliability over its five-year mission. It uses a single processor suite, that has already flown on half a dozen satellites, to govern such mission-critical areas as attitude control, communications, and payload data and telemetry acquisition and storage. Communications between the satellite and the JPL-operated ground station at Table Mountain Observatory in Wrightwood, CA, will be accomplished using previously flown S-band transmitters. Nearly one megabyte of science data will be downlinked every day, along with spacecraft state-of-health telemetry. Orbital will train JPL personnel in operations of the satellite during the spacecraft's on-orbit testing phase.
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Satellite Launch To Boost DTH In India
Calcutta, India (SPX) Dec 28, 2005The successful launch Thursday of India's heaviest satellite from spaceport of Kourou in French Guyana may have boosted the country's space research efforts to yet another level, but it has also lifted the spirits of at least three Direct-To-Home televisions broadcasters, one of which has been waiting for years to launch its services in India. |
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