Goodrich Corporation announced July 9 that the ORS-1 satellite has celebrated its first anniversary in space. ORS-1, the first Operationally Responsive Space satellite specifically designed to support combatant command operations, was launched from Wallops Island Flight Facility aboard a Minotaur I launch vehicle June 29, 2011, at 11:09 p.m., EDT. Designed, manufactured, integrated and tested…

Astrotech Corporation, and its Astrotech Space Operations subsidiary, leading providers of commercial space services, announced July25 that NASA has awarded Astrotech a $2 million task order to provide facilities and pre-launch processing services for the scheduled 2013 launch of Tracking and Data Relay Satellite. Last year, NASA awarded ASO a task order to provide pre-launch…

President Barack Obama told the flight control team for NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover, “You made us all proud,” Aug. 13. Obama telephoned the mission control room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., to congratulate JPL Director Charles Elachi and the Mars Science Laboratory team operating the rover, which landed on Mars a week ago….

NASA’s Radiation Belt Storm Probes, the first twin-spacecraft mission designed to explore our planet’s radiation belts, launched into the predawn skies at 4:05a.m., EDT, Aug. 30 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla. “Scientists will learn in unprecedented detail how the radiation belts are populated with charged particles, what causes them to change and how…

A “switchboard in the sky” for the Iridium NEXT constellation of global communication satellites is one step closer to becoming reality as Lockheed Martincompleted a major software design milestone. Lockheed Martin’s Application Software for the Iridium NEXT constellation held the Critical Design Review, which showed that the design is at a high level of maturity…

A remote sensing instrument that will peer into the ultraviolet to offer clues to how Mars might have lost its atmosphere has arrived at Lockheed Martin for integration into NASA’s Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft. “The Remote Sensing package team built a system that meets all technical requirements and delivered it on schedule…

The spacecraft and science instrument integration for the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph ñ NASAís next Small Explorer Mission ñ has been completed, and final testing is underway. IRIS was designed and built at the Lockheed Martin Space Systems Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, Calif., with support from the companyís Civil Space line of business…