The Kondor-FKA is a small civilian radar Earth observation satellite designed by NPO Mashinostroyeniya as a civilian counterpart to the Kondor-E satellite. The Kondor satellite features a S-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which can conduct both continous swath surweys or detailed spot surveys. The swath width is 10 km. Ground resolution is 1 to 2 m in spotlight mode, 1 to 3 m in stripmap mode and 5 to 30 m in ScanSAR mode.
Sun-Synchronous OrbitSXM-9 is the 10th high-powered, digital, audio radio satellite built by Maxar (SSL) for SiriusXM. The SXM-9 satellite will be based on Maxar’s proven 1300-class platform and built at the company’s manufacturing facility in Palo Alto, California. It is expected that SXM-9 will launch in 2024. SXM-9 has a large, mesh, unfurlable reflector almost 10 meters in diameter that allows SiriusXM programming to reach its radios, including those in moving vehicles.
Geostationary Transfer OrbitSentinel-1C carries an advanced radar technology to provide an all-weather, day-and-night supply of imagery of Earth’s surface. It is a replacement satellite to complete the Sentinel-1 duo after Sentinel-1B suffered a technical anomaly.
Sun-Synchronous OrbitProba-3 (Project for On-Board Autonomy 3) is the first close formation flying mission for the European Space Agency (ESA). It consists of two independent, three-axis stabilised spacecraft flying 150 meters from one another with the ability to accurately control the attitude and separation of the two craft. Such formation flying will be maintained for 6 hours, creating ″artificial solar eclipse″ for the satellite below. The spacecraft pair will fly a highly elliptical orbit divided between periods of accurate formation flying around apogee, when payload operations will be possible, and periods of free flight.
Elliptical OrbitSPADEX (Space Docking Experiment) is an Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) technology mission to demonstrate autonomous docking between 2 spacecraft in orbit. The mission will involve two spacecraft (Chaser and Target) rendezvous and docking together, plus testing attitude control of the combined spacecraft under docked conditions. The Chaser and Target spacecraft will then be separated for operating other payload. The mission is critical to develop rendezvous and docking abilities for ISRO’s future human spaceflight and lunar sample return missions.
Low Earth OrbitUSSF-106 is a mission for the United States Space Force. The launch will deploy various payloads directly into geosynchronous orbit, including the NTS-3 (Navigation Technology Satellite 3), a demonstration navigation satellite testing a new digital signal generator that can be reprogrammed on-orbit to broadcast new signals, improve performance by avoiding and defeating interference, and adding signatures for detecting spoofing attacks.
Geosynchronous Orbit