HIGH THROUGHPUT: Euroconsult says 33 High Throughput Satellite (HTS) systems will be launched between 2014 and 2016, compared to the total 31 HTS systems that were launched over the last decade. “The growing popularity of HTS systems will bring the total cumulative investment to over $12 billion,” the consultancy says. Euroconsult predicts global HTS capacity supply will nearly triple over the next three years to reach 1,400 Gbps in 2016.

HOUSTON — Russia’s unpiloted Progress 53 cargo capsule will test upgraded rendezvous system hardware over a four-day journey to the International Space Station that began Nov. 25 with a liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The automated linkup with the station’s Russia segment Zvezda service module is expected on Nov. 29 at 5:28 p.m. EST.

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) founder Elon Musk says he expects the company’s new Falcon 9 v1.1 rocket to force greater competition and innovation in the launch industry as it captures market share. Musk’s comments came the day before the Falcon 9 v1.1 was due to launch its first commercial payload to supersynchronous transfer orbit on Nov. 25 from SpaceX’s Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla.

The European Space Agency (ESA) and its industrial partners need more time to reduce the weight of the service module they are developing to fly on NASA’s Orion multipurpose crew exploration vehicle in 2017, a delay that will see the project’s preliminary design review (PDR) slip nearly one year, to May 2014.

HOUSTON — The capture phase of NASA’s proposed Asteroid Retrieval Mission (ARM) sparked great interest during a Nov. 21 workshop in Houston, with outside experts saying they want to shape a grand strategy to find and corral a 5- to 10-meter, 500-metric-ton near-Earth object for a journey to a stable orbit around the Moon, where it could be accessed by future U.S. astronauts.

Frozen igniter fluid lines were to blame for the failure of an upper-stage restart during the first Falcon 9 v1.1 launch on Sept. 29. Officials at Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), manufacturer of the rocket, did not detect the problem during ground tests because “ambient air kept the lines warm,” says Emily Shanklin, a spokeswoman for the company. It is unclear whether thermal testing was conducted. “We’ve added insulation and made sure that cold oxygen can’t impinge on the lines” in future missions, she says.

DARMSTADT, Germany — The European Space Agency (ESA) orbited its Swarm Earth-observation mission atop a Russian Rockot launcher Nov. 22, sending a trio of research satellites 500 km (300 mi.) above the planet’s surface to study the magnetic field that protects it from cosmic radiation and charged particles in the solar wind.

A growing number of satellite-based automatic identification systems (AIS) make it easier for maritime surveillance to tie ship-tracking data with high-resolution satellite imagery. Used with AIS, space-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) and optical remote-sensing platforms determine not only the presence of ships, but their identity, position, speed, heading, load, size and type.