MAINE COMPANY PLANS TO LAUNCH SMALL SATELLITES STARTING IN 2025 - Representatives for a Maine company that plans to send small satellites into space from the Northeast's most rural state said they will start launches next year. Brunswick-based bluShift Aerospace hopes to turn Maine into a hub for the launching of commercial nanosatellites and has been making progress toward that goal for more than three years. A successful recent round of fundraising means commercial suborbital launch is on track to start in 2025, company officials said Tuesday. More (Source: Phys.org - Jun 5)
DESPITE GYRO FAILURE, NASA SAYS HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE STILL UP TO WORLD-CLASS SCIENCE - Trouble with one of the Hubble Space Telescope’s three remaining gyroscopes, critical for aiming and locking onto targets, has prompted mission managers to switch to a backup control mode that will limit some observations but keep the iconic observatory running well into the 2030s, officials said Tuesday. “We still believe there’s very high reliability and likelihood that we can operate Hubble very successfully, doing groundbreaking science, through the rest of the 20s and into the 2030s,” Patrick Crouse, the Hubble project manager, told reporters during an afternoon teleconference. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 5)
ULA’S UPDATE AFTER YESTERDAY’S SCRUB OF BOEING STARLINER AND NASA ASTRONAUTS MISSION TO ISS - NASA, Boeing, and ULA (United Launch Alliance) are forgoing a Crew Flight Test launch attempt Sunday, June 2, to give the team additional time to assess a ground support equipment issue at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex-41 in Florida. Saturday’s launch was to carry NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to and from the International Space Station scrubbed due to an observation of a ground launch sequencer. The system was unsuccessful in verifying the sequencer’s necessary redundancy. More (Source: SatNews - Jun 4)
TüRKIYE SEEKS DOMESTIC SOLUTION AGAINST SPACE DEBRIS - Türkiye is seeking to find a national solution to the problem of space debris, the satellite programs director of Turkish communications satellite operator Türksat said Saturday. Fatih Ayhan told Anadolu Agency (AA) that space debris could harm the activities in orbit, and the national technologies to be developed will prevent this, providing export potential by creating international competition in the process. More (Source: Daily Sabah - Jun 3)
RUSSIAN PROGRESS 88 CARGO SHIP DOCKS AT ISS CARRYING TONS OF FRESH SUPPLIES - A robotic Russian cargo craft docked at the International Space Station on Saturday morning (June 1) to deliver tons of fresh supplies, just hours ahead of the planned launch of a Boeing Starliner spacecraft set to carry two astronauts to the station for the first time. The Roscosmos Progress 88 freighter linked up with the orbiting lab's Poisk module Saturday at 7:43 a.m. EDT (1143 GMT) in a smooth automated docking as the two spacecraft sailed high above southern Russia. More (Source: Space.com - Jun 2)
NASA FOREGOES SUNDAY LAUNCH, DELAYING STARLINER TAKEOFF TO AT LEAST WEDNESDAY - The seemingly star-cross Boeing Starliner — within minutes of its long-delayed blastoff on the spacecraft’s first piloted test flight — was grounded again Saturday when one of three redundant computers managing the countdown from the base of the launch pad ran into a problem, triggering a last-minute scrub. Engineers initially were told to set up for another launch try Sunday, at 12:03 p.m. EDT, assuming the problem could be resolved in time. But NASA later announced the team would pass up the Sunday opportunity to give engineers more time to assess the computer issue. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 2)
GREECE TO LAUNCH NEW SATELLITE CONSTELLATION - Greece is set to launch its first ever state-owned satellite constellation to help government agencies collect vital data for improved environmental monitoring, disaster response, and national security. The 13 satellites, costing 60 million euros, are being built by UK company Open Cosmos’s branch in Greece – Open Cosmos Aegean. More (Source: Greek Reporter - Jun 2)
POWERFUL NEW NOAA WEATHER SATELLITE SET FOR JUNE LAUNCH ATOP SPACEX FALCON HEAVY - It's the final countdown (I know you're singing along with me, don't deny it!). But why not, as the countdown clock now reads less than a month until NOAA's GOES-U satellite is slated to soar into space on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket. At the beginning of the year, the fourth satellite in NOAA's GOES-R series made the journey from its home in Colorado at Lockheed Martin to Florida to undergo processing ahead of the launch at the end of June. The mission's two-hour launch window opens on Tuesday, June 25 at 5:16 p.m. EDT (2116 GMT) and will liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. More (Source: Space.com - Jun 1)
SENSOR ISSUE SCRUBS ROCKET LAB LAUNCH OF SHOEBOX-SIZED NASA CLIMATE SATELLITE - Rocket Lab's first attempt at launching the second of two cubesats for NASA's PREFIRE climate change mission ended in a scrub on Friday (May 31). An Electron rocket topped with the tiny satellite had been poised to lift off from Rocket Lab's New Zealand site at 10:46 p.m. EDT (0246 GMT or 2:46 p.m. local time on June 1), until an "out-of-family sensor reading" near the end of the launch window resulted in a scrub. More (Source: Space.com - Jun 1)
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