PASADENA, Calif., (Motiv Space Systems PR) — After traveling for about 7 months and nearly 300 million miles, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover landed on the Red Planet on Thursday. After landing, the rover will rely on several technologies developed by Motiv Space Systems, a space robotics company based in Pasadena, California.

• The Lightspeed program is expected to bring $1.8 billion of investment into the Québec aerospace sector, creating 600 new highly-skilled, high-paying jobs and billions of dollars in economic growth.
• Telesat selects Canada’s MDA to deliver the state-of-the-art phased array antennas for Lightspeed satellites.
• Telesat’s prime contractor, Thales Alenia Space, will establish the Lightspeed satellites’ final assembly and manufacturing in Québec and is in discussions with Québec-based partners.

MONTRÉAL (Telesat PR) – Telesat, one of the world’s largest satellite operators, announced today that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Government of Québec for an investment of $400 million [US $317 million] into Telesat Lightspeed, Telesat’s highly advanced Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite network. Telesat will invest $1.6 billion [US $1.27 billion] into Québec, both directly and through its supply chain, which will include a significant portion of Lightspeed manufacturing and operations. The Lightspeed program will create 600 high-paying STEM jobs, leverage Québec’s substantial aerospace expertise and infrastructure, and allow the province to harness the significant economic growth from the burgeoning New Space Economy.

TORONTO (Space Flight Laboratory PR) – The Norwegian Space Agency (NOSA) has awarded Space Flight Laboratory (SFL) of Canada a contract to develop the NorSat Technology Demonstrator (TD) microsatellite. With a primary mission of testing out new technologies in space, NorSat-TD will validate payloads and concepts from Norway, the Netherlands, France, and Italy.

Video Caption: President Joe Biden called acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk on Feb. 18, 2021, just after the Perseverance rover touched down on Mars to congratulate the agency’s team on the successful landing.

Earth Observant completed tests of a pioneering Hall-effect thruster at the US Air Force Research Lab’s vacuum chamber facility at Edwards Air Force Base over a period of two weeks. The HET-X Thruster uses traditional EP fuel sources and a new, undisclosed propellant solution that is low-cost, non-toxic, and widely available.

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 18, 2021 (Earth Observant PR) — Earth Observant Inc. (EOI) successfully completed a series of tests on its internally developed Hall-effect thruster that introduces new propellant types while maintaining thruster efficiency and minimizing erosion. This technology supports EOI’s core mission of operating a Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) constellation of Earth Imaging satellites to deliver ultra-high resolution image data.

WALLOPS, Va. (NASA PR) — A Northrop Grumman Cygnus resupply spacecraft is en route to the International Space Station with approximately 8,000 pounds of science investigations and cargo after launching at 12:36 p.m. EST Saturday from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. About three hours after launch, the spacecraft’s solar arrays successfully deployed to collect sunlight to power Cygnus on its journey to the space station.

The technology demonstration has phoned home from where it is attached to the belly of NASA’s Perseverance rover.

PASADENA, Calif. (NASA PR) — Mission controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California have received the first status report from the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter, which landed Feb. 18, 2021, at Jezero Crater attached to the belly of the agency’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.

The downlink, which arrived at 3:30 p.m. PST (6:30 p.m. EST) via a connection through the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, indicates that both the helicopter, which will remain attached to the rover for 30 to 60 days, and its base station (an electrical box on the rover that stores and routes communications between the rotorcraft and Earth) are operating as expected.

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif., February 19, 2021 (Teledyne Technologies PR) – Teledyne Technologies (NYSE: TDY) is proud to contribute several of its advanced high performance image sensors to form part of the complex instrumentation onboard the Mars Rover Perseverance. Teledyne sensors will power, sense and help analyze the chemical composition of the surface and minerals, including Gy and atmosphere during the Mars 2020 mission.

by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

The Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General has announced an investigation into the U.S. Air Force’s controversial decision to locate U.S. Space Command’s headquarters at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala.

In a letter to the U.S. Air Force secretary, the office said it would investigate whether the decision process:

• “complied with DoD and Air Force policies during the location selection process;
• used objective and relevant scoring factors to rank the six candidate locations; and
• calculated the cost and other scoring factors accurately and consistently among the six candidate locations.”

HAMPTON, Va. (NASA PR) — Like a Swiss Army knife, there’s not a whole lot NASA’s Lightweight Surface Manipulation System (LSMS) technology can’t do.

This lightweight robotic crane is comprised of a structurally efficient truss frame with cable actuation, and mimics the movement of a human arm, but with a much longer reach. It is scalable to fit any sized lander, vehicle, or surface application and can use a toolbox of quick-interchange end-effectors, or tools, that allow it to act as a hoist, forklift, regolith scoop, welder, and more.

Available today with any hardware, the Kymeta Global TRANSEC Secure Network coverage for the United States, Middle East, and Europe, ensures the highest levels of security and encryption

Redmond, Wash. (Kymeta PR) — Kymeta (www.kymetacorp.com) — the communications company making mobile global — announced today that it will begin offering the first commercially available iDirect TRANSEC network, ensuring that its customers and partners can receive the highest levels of encryption, authentication, and traffic concealment, exceeding the current requirements outlined by the U.S. government.

This first-of-its-kind satellite service offering provides full compliance with numerous Federal and DOD standards, including the January 2021 DOD Instruction 8523.01. This new service paired with the Kymeta™ u8 GOV, which includes iDirect’s 950 mp modem, along with iDirect’s latest interference mitigation software allows for the most secure and reliable satellites services to date.

SAN DIEGO, February 18, 2021 (GA-EMS PR) — General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) announced today that it has awarded a contract to Firefly Aerospace Inc. to launch a GA-EMS developed Orbital Test Bed (OTB) satellite carrying NASA’s Multi-Angle Imager for Aerosols (MAIA) instrument. The launch vehicle delivering the satellite to space will be Firefly’s Alpha rocket and is scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in 2022.