Military/Aerospace Electronics

The use of robots should trump that of astronauts when it comes to government funded space travel, suggests Lord Rees (OM, FRS, HonFREng, FMedSci, FRAS, HonFInstP), the cosmologist and astrophysicist. The UK’s Astronomer Royal – his official title – has said government funding should no longer be used to send people into space. Talking in the context of space exploration ...

Nasa has awarded a contract to Airbus to design and build the GRACE-C twin spacecraft, in order to continue the measurement of the Earth’s gravity field. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is working with the German Space Agency, and the craft will be built at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). During its planned five year lifetime, the GRACE-C (Gravity Recovery ...

Quadsat, the Danish drone-based antenna testing company, has launched its product range with an extended breadth of frequency ranges and the addition of uplink capabilities. The Quadsat range for RF measurement comprises: QS 1-18 DL (downlink tests, covering S-KU band), QS 6-24 DL (downlink tests, X – KA low band), QS 17-31 DL (downlink, KA band), QS 6-24 DL/UL (downlink ...

Simera Sense, an optical payload specialist for small satellites, has raised €13.5 million in its first funding round. The funding will be used to further develop its camera product range, increase its production capacity, and accelerate its on-board processing capabilities, said the company. Additional production sites were also being planned in Europe. Specifically, it will fast-track the development of higher-resolution ...

Four UK technology companies – including a space situational awareness specialist – have been selected to receive support from the UK-APAC Tech Growth Programme, to help accelerate plans for expansion in Japan. Aimed at UK technology startups headquartered in the UK, the programme is a government-backed initiative run by Intralink, a business development consultancy. The latest four companies to be ...

Slingshot Aerospace, the satellite tracking specialist, has opened a UK base – Slingshot Aerospace Ltd – as part of its international expansion. Slingshot’s first offices outside its base in the USA, will be in Cornwall and London. It has existing locations in California (El Segundo) and Colorado (and Fort Collins and Colorado Springs). Melissa Quinn will step into a new ...

Abaco Systems latest analogue front-end mezzanine card for FPGAs has been tailored for software defined radio, as well as electronic warfare, radar, test and measurement. FMC300, as it will be known, has 7GHz of usable analogue bandwidth, claims the company, with multiple channels offering up to 12bit 6Gsample/s ADC and up to 16bit 12Gsample/s DAC through a JESD204B/C interface. Data ...

Sen, a UK space video company, is launching a 4K live stream looking out from the International Space Station (ISS) with the aim to enable people “to see Earth from space like astronauts”. Its cameras will be arriving at the space station as part of the Space X-30 Commercial Resupply Mission (CRS) to the ISS. Then, once aboard, Sen’s payload ...

Terran Orbital is entering the small satellite geosynchronous orbit (GEO) market with its SmallSat GEO system for satellites above 500kg. The satellite manufacturer – based in Boca Raton, Florida – says SmallSat GEO is aimed at the communications market and will provide higher power and performance than may have been needed in low-earth orbit (LEO). The company is also promising ...

Astrolight, a space communications startup, has joined Nato’s Defense Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA), bringing its dual-use laser communication technology to the defense sector. A Vilnius, Lithuania-based company, Astrolight specialises in space-to-Earth and ship-to-ship laser communications. It’s focus in DIANA will be tactical communication between navy ships. The company plans to develop a product for optical comms so ...