Thales Alenia Space is manufacturing the IS-41 and IS-44 satellites, which are based on the innovative and flexible Space Inspire product line. The two software-defined satellites, fully reconfigurable in orbit, will collectively weigh close to 8000 kg at launch and will be placed into the requested geostationary transfer orbit.

Ariane 6 has been designed from the outset to be scalable and able to integrate, during its life and on a regular basis, new technologies. Ariane 6’s incremental development is intended to regularly improve the performance of the launch solutions offered by Arianespace and always better fulfil the needs of both institutional and commercial customers. These developments are funded and managed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and implemented by Ariane 6’s launcher system prime contractor ArianeGroup.

Source:  Arianespace
Associated URL: arianespace.com

The satellites will be used, among other things, to accurately monitor land surface and ocean temperatures, air quality, and to improve the estimation of global emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants in order to support the achievement of the global decarbonization and emissions reduction goals.

Thanks to this contract, the Vega C launch backlog reaches 13 flights, plus 2 Vega launches, for a total of 15 flights, demonstrating Europe’s autonomous access to space capability. Thanks to its high performance and flexibility at a low cost, Vega C represents the most convenient and versatile solution to launch of Earth Observation satellites in Low Earth Orbit.

For the European Union's Copernicus constellation, Vega had already launched the Sentinel 2-A satellite into orbit in June 2015 and Sentinel 2-B in March 2017.

Source:  Avio
Associated URL: avio.com

GPS is a satellite-based radio navigation system that delivers sustained, reliable GPS capabilities to America’s warfighters, U.S allies and civil users. GPS provides positioning, navigation and timing service to civil and military users worldwide.

GPS IIIF will provide several next-generation capabilities to meet increased demands of both military and civilian users. Building on the technical baseline of SV 01-10, the newer satellites will provide increased anti-jam capabilities for the military with the addition of a Regional Military Protection capability. Precision ranging measurements will be enabled by a Laser Retro-reflector Array and will address the consolidation of telemetry, tracking and commanding frequencies.

Additionally, GPS IIIF leverages major international collaboration with the Canadian Department of National Defense, and other U.S. Government organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, and the US Coast Guard Office of Search and Rescue (SAR) by hosting a new SAR payload. This payload provides enhanced capabilities to the SAR mission with distress alert detection and location to 100 percent continuous global coverage and reduces location uncertainty to less than 5 km in support of 49 international partners. Finally, the program will host a redesigned Nuclear Detonation Detection System solution that has a lower overall size, weight and power requirement.

The GPS IIIF SV11-12 satellites were included in the original GPS IIIF contract awarded to Lockheed Martin in September 2018 to build up to 22 GPS IIIF satellites. Under that contract, SSC exercised the first production option for SV13-14 in October 2020 and second production option for SV 15-17 in October 2021.

Source:  Space Systems Command
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