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On July 31, 2018, the 45th Space Wing inactivated the 45th Launch Group, combining their launch mission and personnel with the 45th Operations Group. The personnel from both groups will be led by Col. Steven Lang, commander of the 45th OG.
Moments before the 45th Launch Group inactivation and merger, the 45th Launch Support Squadron also inactivated and merged with the 5th Space Launch Squ
Millennium Space Systems announced Tuesday that on May 17, its ALTAIR Pathfinder satellite surpassed a full year of successful on-orbit operations. The satellite now has more than 10,000 hours of flight heritage. Initially planned as a six-month mission, Pathfinder has achieved all planned goals and more than doubled its intended operational lifetime.
Since its launch in 2017, ALTAIR Pathf
WASHINGTON — Maxar Technologies, owner of satellite manufacturer Space Systems Loral, may shut down its geostationary manufacturing line as a result of a multi-year order drought that management considers the new norm.
Maxar executives said exiting the business of building large telecom satellites, which operators typically pay $100 million or more for, is one of three mitigation strategies the company is considering. The other two are partnering with another satellite manufacturer, or “right-sizing its GEO operations in Palo Alto,” California, to match “a more conservative long-term demand outlook,” according to a Bank of Montreal report of a closed-door meeting in June.
Maxar confirmed the report July 23, telling SpaceNews that pressure on SSL has led the company to consider “strategic alternatives.”
“We have experienced material satellite order declines in recent years, as a result of end market supply and demand factors and additional capacity coming on orbit from [high-throughput satellites] and [low-Earth-orbit] constellations,” Maxar said in an emailed statement. “SSL has responded appropriately to manage its workforce and costs during this challenging time. As previously stated, we are continuing to review strategic alternatives for our GEO communications satellite business to improve its financial performance. No final decision has been made. At the same time, we continue to see strong growth in our US Government and LEO communications and Earth observation businesses and remain encouraged regarding the potential in these markets.”
Maxar declined to comment further, citing its upcoming quarterly earnings call at the end of the month.
Maxar will decide on the three outcomes by year’s end, according to a research note from Thanos Moschopoulos, the Bank of Montreal analyst who attended the meeting. If Maxar goes with the most drastic option — exiting the GEO business altogether — the company would likely keep some operations for robotics and smaller LEO satellites, Moschopoulos wrote.
The continued drought
Maxar’s SSL division is one of the top manufacturers of commercial telecom satellites. The company has tied or come in first for winning the largest number of GEO comsat orders every year since 2013, according to Bank of Montreal numbers.
The number of annual GEO comsat orders have dropped dramatically over the last few years. After averaging 20 or more satellite orders a year, the industry saw just 19 GEO comsat orders in 2015, 15 orders in 2016 and eight orders in 2017, according to the bank’s numbers.
Five GEO comsats have been ordered so far this year. Two of those orders (BSAT-4b for Japanese operator BSAT, and Amos-8 for Israeli operator Spacecom ) went to SSL while Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems was chosen to build Intelsat’s Galaxy-30, Thales Alenia Space was chosen to build Eutelsat’s Konnect VHTS and China Great Wall Industry Corp was chosen to build Cambodia’s Techo-1 satellites. The bank did not count the two satellites China Great Wall is building for NigComSat in exchange for a stake in the state-owned Nigerian company.
One of SSL’s 2018 orders is not fully finalized. Spacecom delayed its downpayment on the $112 million Amos-8 satellite upon news that the Israeli government may procure a satellite from domestic manufacturer Israel Aerospace Industries and co-locate it with Spacecom’s fleet at 4 degrees West.
Maxar is “not anticipating a rebound in the market,” Moschopoulos wrote. “[I]ts outlook for the market has become more cautious than it had been just six months ago.”
Howard Lance, Maxar’s chief executive, said in May that the company was seeking to align its direct labor with the declining amount of factory work at SSL. As satellites ship out for launch this summer — SSL shipped the first of three last month — that provides “opportunity for further rationalization of those resources,” he said.
Lance said Maxar was continuing to evaluate “other ways that we can better align our costs longer term with what we believe will be a sustained lower level of GEO market orders.”
Small satellite opportunity
Maxar, which was formed last year when Canada’s MDA added DigitalGlobe to a portfolio that already included SSL, has gradually repositioned itself as a U.S. company in order to do more business with the U.S. government. Lance said some small satellite work for the U.S. government and some commercial customers was dampening the impact of the GEO slump.
SSL, working with the University of Toronto’s Space Flight Laboratory, built one of two prototype LEO satellites for Canadian fleet operator Telesat. The satellite was lost in a November Soyuz failure, but Moschopoulos wrote that SSL should still be favorably positioned in the competition to build Telesat’s 117-broadband-satellite constellation.
“Maxar should be well positioned for this contract given its long history with Telesat (having built the majority of Telesat’s existing GEO fleet) and given that it has a Canadian manufacturing presence, which is just a 90-minute drive from Telesat’s global headquarters in Ottawa,” Moschopoulos wrote.
He added that the Canadian government’s plan to invest 100 million Canadian dollars ($76 million) into LEO satellite technology over the next five years “might provide Telesat with some added incentive to favor a Canadian manufacturer.” Maxar, though mostly a U.S. company, has its MDA Corp. facilities in Canada and recently purchased Canadian robotics specialist Neptec for $32 million. Telesat and MDA Corp. have both expressed interest in the fund.
Moschopoulos cautioned that losing the Telesat LEO competition could be “problematic for Maxar’s LEO aspirations,” given that only a few large LEO constellations are expected to be built. Airbus is building OneWeb’s first 900 LEO satellites, Thales is positioned to build LeoSat’s 84 satellites and SpaceX is building some 4,500 satellites in-house.
“This is consequently a key contract to watch” he wrote.
Telesat’s only operational LEO prototype was supplied by Airbus subsidiary Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. in the United Kingdom.
Maxar has internal use for its small satellite manufacturing thanks to its ownership of DigitalGlobe. The company is building DigitalGlobe’s WorldView Legion constellation of remote-sensing satellites, for which the first launch is scheduled for 2021 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Maxar said as recently as May that it continues to expect satellite operators will order eight to 12 GEO comsats this year, with manufacturers in the U.S., Europe and Asia contending for bids.
SILVER SPRINGS, MD—Addressing concerns that the naming practice could unfairly bias consumers against the products, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a statement Thursday strongly defending the decision to reclassify alternative milks as “nut sweat.” “While we hope this new labeling helps clarify shopping…
The post You’ll Be OK appeared first on The Perry Bible Fellowship.
Hovertext:
Actually, let's invent supersonic flight, then decide it's a bit too loud and give up.
DuaneSo good. @brian
Is @brian a thing?
JOHNSTOWN, OH—Anxiously searching through the variety of brands on display for an acceptable offering, local man Nate Walsh reportedly scanned the beer aisle of his neighborhood Kroger Thursday for something his asshole friend wouldn’t mock. “I never heard the end of it when I showed up to Dave’s New Year’s Eve party…
As discussed in this blog post, GOES-13 — launched in May 2006, with a Post Launch Test in December 2006 — served as GOES-East from 2010 to 2017. Image dissemination was terminated on 08 January 2018; the satellite will then begin drifting on 10 January to its storage location at 60º West longitude. Shown below are the final Full Disk Visible (0.63 µm), Water Vapor (6.5 µm) and Infrared Window (10.7 µm) images broadcast by GOES-13 at 1445 UTC.
![GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) image [click to enlarge]](http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/180108_G13_FD_VIS.GIF)
GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) image [click to enlarge]
![GOES-13 Water Vapor (6.5 µm) image [click to enlarge]](http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/180108_G13_FD_WATER_VAPOR.GIF)
GOES-13 Water Vapor (6.5 µm) image [click to enlarge]
![GOES-13 Infrared Window (10.7 µm) image [click to enlarge]](http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/180108_G13_FD_IRW.GIF)
GOES-13 Infrared Window (10.7 µm) image [click to enlarge]
DuaneGOES-13, you will always be N our hearts.
GOES-13 Visible (0.63 µm) Image, 1745 UTC on 2 January 2018 (Click to enlarge)
The GOES-13 Satellite, operational as GOES-East from April 2010 through December 2017 (with a notable interruption) will be turned off sometime after 1500 UTC on Wednesday 3 January 2018. (Update: due to an impending East Coast winter storm, GOES-13 deactivation was postponed to 8 January)
The visible Full Disk image above, from 1745 UTC on 2 January 2018, is one of the last fully illuminated visible image the satellite will process. (The first processed full disk visible image, from 22 June 2006, can be viewed here.)
On 28 December 2017, GOES-13 imagery included a view of the Moon, as shown here (and zoomed in here). Future GOES-East imagery from GOES-16 will not include images of the Moon. GOES-16 will scan the moon when it is near the horizon (and there are occasional GOES-16 mesoscale sectors placed over the Moon for calibration purposes). However, GOES-16 imagery is remapped to Earth points before being broadcast to the public. The Moon (happily) is not on the Earth and its points will not be remapped.
Thank you GOES-13 for your long years of service. A full-resolution version of the image above is available here.
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Millennium Space Systems announces the successful completion of its ALTAIR Pathfinder mission objectives last week as the spacecraft reached its six-month milestone and 4,500 hours of successful operations in low earth orbit. ALTAIR Pathfinder was released via NanoRacks commercial launch service.
NanoRacks services are made available by its Space Act Agreement with NASA's U.S. National Lab
