Military/Aerospace Electronics

NASA has selected nine companies to perform initial studies of how commercial services can be applied to enable science missions to Mars. The U.S. companies will perform a total of 12 concept studies, and each will receive between $200,000 and $300,000 to produce a report on specific potential services, including payload delivery, communications relay, surface imaging, and payload hosting. “We’re ...

The UK Space Agency has announced funding for 15 projects across the UK designed to inspire younger people into STEM. The awards – totalling over a £1 million – will be made from the agency’s Space for All fund, which aims to attract new talent to the UK space sector. The projects – in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales ...

EPC is aiming at satellites with an application note on four-phase dc-dc point-of load converters using multiple 26 x 19mm modules. The note, AN005, picks a radiation-specified current-mode PWM controller from Texas Instruments (TPS7H5001-SP) as a source of PWM waveforms. Each TPS7H5001-SP can produce two pairs of upper and lower PWMs for a total of two phases, and TPS7H5001-SP has ...

BAE Systems has been selected by NASA to build an atmospheric composition instrument (ACX) for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) future GeoXO constellation. The ACX is the second BAE Systems has been contracted to develop for the mission to support environmental monitoring. The instrument will help improve measurements of air quality, improve weather forecasts and help pilots ...

Orbex, a UK spaceflight company, has raises £16.7m investment from six backers in an update to its Series C funding round. The funding will help Orbex ramp up the development of Prime, its 19-metre long, two-stage rocket for transporting small satellites into Low Earth Orbit, says the Forres-based company. The aim is to ensure full readiness for its launch period, ...

Increasingly space can be viewed as a critical infrastructure, says Alun Williams, with utilities and services relying on reliable PNT information systems. Many sectors of a modern society – think water systems, transportation systems or financial services, for example – increasingly rely on data or services from space-based systems. Arguably one of the most important areas involves the provision of ...

Microchip Technology has announced a family of radiation-tolerant isolated dc-dc 50W power converters, in nine variants with single and triple-outputs ranging from 3.3V to 28V. LE50-28 power converters are designed to meet MIL-STD-461. The power converters have a companion EMI filter. This series provides flexibility to parallel up to four power converters to reach 200W. “The family of devices enable ...

The European Galileo navigation system has two more satellites in orbit, to further increase its reliability, with 30 satellites now in the constellation. This follows from their launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 at the end of last month. The European Space Agency highlights the strategic importance of the navigation information: already 10% of the EU’s yearly GDP relies – ...

The International Space Station (ISS) National Laboratory is highlighting the return to earth of a range of projects that have been undertaken in space, in its permanent microgravity research environment. After more than 35 days onboard the International Space Station, SpaceX’s 30th Commercial Resupply Services Mission for NASA successfully splashed back to Earth off the Florida coast earlier this week. ...

Leonardo will ready the UK’s Royal Air Force to handle future combat air mission data following the award of a new 10-year contract. Specifically, the Ministry of Defence (MOD)’s Defence Equipment and Support (DE&S) agency chose the company to develop and future proof the tools that generate and analyse the data used by the UK Armed Forces’ combat aircraft – ...