Military/Aerospace Electronics

Two European Space Agency navigation satellites launched into the wrong orbit last weekend. The satellites were meant to be the fifth and sixth in Europe’s Galileo global positioning system, a network of 30 satellites expected to be up and running by 2020. They launched from French Guinea on a Soyuz rocket on 22 August, but did not make it to ...

Gresham Power Electronics of Wiltshire has secured a £1.18m order from Korea based Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) to supply un-interruptable power supply (UPS) systems for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary’s Tide class tankers, currently being built by Daewoo. To be delivered to the MoD, each tanker requires eight UPS systems of various power ratings. “After nine months of hard ...

Four more O3B satellites have been launched, to help provide telco services in emerging markets.

The European Space Agency (ESA) has approved plans for the Athena X-ray space telescope, which will be the largest of its kind ever built. Costing about €1 billion, the flagship project will launch in 2028. It will weigh in at 5 tonnes, be about 12 metres long and will provide 100 times greater sensitivity than existing X-ray missions. The telescope will ...

NASA and the National Space Grant Foundation have selected five universities to design systems, concepts and technologies to enhance capabilities for deep space missions. They are part of the 2015 Exploration Habitat (X-Hab) Academic Innovation Challenge. The idea is to encourage studies in spaceflight-related disciplines, and also to help the agency gather new ideas to complement its current R&D. Throughout ...

Thales Alenia Space has announced the acquisition of the “space activities” of Systems Engineering & Assessment (SEA) Limited, which is part of Cohort plc. Thales Alenia Space UK expects the deal will boost growth in systems engineering and research and technology. “Our decision to come to the UK, motivated by the UK Government’s work has been supported by concrete actions ...

NASA has successfully beamed a high-definition video 260 miles from the International Space Station to Earth using a new laser communications instrument. The US space agency says the transmission of the “Hello, World!” video was the first 175-megabit communication for the Optical Payload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS). It was a technology demonstration, says NASA, to test methods for communication with ...

Smart fusing of data from multiple image sensors can improve military driving, said a European consortium. Several image sensor types are used in military applications: daylight sensors (mostly CCD), image intensifier tubes for low light, and thermal (short, medium and long wavelength). Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, and some sort of mixing can be useful. “The typical solution ...

Providing Mobile (MSS), Fixed (FSS) and Broadcast Satellite Services (BSS)