SSL AND NASA MOVE CLOSER TO CREATING A SERVICE SPACECRAFT FOR LEO SATELLITES - Satellite provider Space Systems Loral (SSL) and NASA have completed a key step towards building a spacecraft that can service satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO), potentially extending their useful life and making it possible to move forward on building a whole new industry out of deployed satellite service operations. SSL and NASA successfully passed the Preliminary Design Review stage for the Restore-L mission, which aims to combine robotics to create a platform for latching onto and refuelling LEO satellites. This means the Restore-L design has met initial mission requirements, and will now move on to a more detailed design phase to flesh out the specifics of the spacecraft SSR will construct with a launch window target of 2020. More (Source: TechCrunch - Aug 9)
CONSTRUCTION OF ONEWEB’S NEW SATELLITE FACTORY IS MOVING QUICKLY - The manufacturing plant, located just outside the gates of the Kennedy Space Center and near Blue Origin’s New Glenn factory, will be used to produce the bulk of the company’s initial constellation of 900 broadband communications satellites. OneWeb broke ground on the factory in March, and recent photos showed its exterior structure already in place. OneWeb expects the factory to start satellite production in early 2018. More (Source: SpaceNews - Aug 9)
CHUCK SCHUMER SAYS PROPOSED CUTS IN WEATHER SATELLITE FUNDS MAY AFFECT HOW N.Y. PREPARES FOR STORMS - Proposed massive cuts to a weather satellite program could lead to dangerously delayed storm warnings in New York City and Long Island, Sen. Chuck Schumer said Sunday. Congress should heed the lessons of Hurricane Sandy and reverse a proposed $369 million cut to the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which provides satellite data to the National Weather Service, warned Schumer, who said the reduction would put lives at risk. More (Source: New York Daily News - Aug 8)
WORLD'S FIRST PRIVATE WEATHER SATELLITE LAUNCHED INTO ORBIT - The world's largest provider of ocean weather data, Weathernews, successfully launched its own microsatellite on July 14, making it the first weather company to have its own satellite. It was the company's second try at putting a satellite into orbit after a failed attempt in 2013. Weathernews transmits information and analysis to roughly 6,000 ships a year, including sea ice information for vessels plying Arctic routes. Its clients include Maersk Group of Denmark and other major shipping companies. More (Source: Nikkei Asian Review - Aug 7)
ISRO SET TO LAUNCH SATELLITE WITH CORRECTED CLOCKS - Indian Space Research Organisation will soon launch a replacement navigation satellite fitted with corrected atomic clocks to make up for the crippled satellite, IRNSS-1A. The upcoming IRNSS-1H will be sent up towards the end of August and a date is yet to be fixed, ISRO Chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar said. Its launch became imperative after all three rubidium atomic clocks on IRNSS-1A failed in mid-2016, Mr. Kumar told The Hindu. Three more clocks failed later across the fleet of seven satellites, which together had 21 atomic clocks. More (Source: The Hindu - Aug 5)
MINI-SATELLITE NAMED AFTER 'GOD OF DAWN' WILL LAUNCH THIS MONTH - The nanosatellite, known as Dellingr, is about the size of a table picture frame, and will carry six instruments, one of which is smaller than a fingernail. After ascending toward the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the tiny satellite will later be deployed into low Earth orbit, NASA officials said in a statement. Small-satellite missions can be challenging to conduct: A mission with a similarly loaded cubesat, or miniature spacecraft, was aborted in 2016 just six months after it launched. More (Source: Space.com - Aug 5)
DOD METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE MISSION TO END - The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Flight 19 will soon cease transmitting weather data after nearly three and a half years of operational service, the U.S. Air Force said. There is no impact to the strategic weather mission, and the DMSP constellation remains able to support military requirements through resilient systems and processes, the Air Force reported. The remainder of the constellation continues to provide weather and atmospheric data to users. More (Source: SpaceNews - Aug 5)
USAF SEES “MINIMAL” MISSION IMPACT WITH AEHF-4 SATELLITE LAUNCH DELAY - A problem with the power regulator on the Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF)-4 satellite is forcing the U.S. Air Force to slip the launch of the satellite until the coming calendar year but the service says the delay will not result in a major mission impact. The target date for the for the satellite was Oct. 17, Capt. AnnMarie Annicelli, an Air Force spokeswoman, said. “The AEHF-4 launch is delayed due to an issue with a power regulator unit that was discovered in January 2017 and confirmed via testing in Apr 2017,” she said. Satellite contractor Lockheed Martin declined to comment. More (Source: SpaceNews - Aug 5)
SES AGREES TO LAUNCH ANOTHER SATELLITE ON PREVIOUSLY-FLOWN FALCON 9 BOOSTER - Six months after sending one of its communications satellites to orbit on the first re-flight of a SpaceX rocket, SES intends to launch a hybrid television broadcasting satellite owned in partnership with EchoStar on another previously-used Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Space Coast as soon as late September, industry officials told Spaceflight Now. The launch of the SES 11 spacecraft, also named EchoStar 105, will be the third time SpaceX has sent a customer’s satellite into orbit with the help of a reused rocket stage. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 5)
VECTOR SPACE SYSTEMS WANTS TO BE THE “MCDONALD’S OF THE ROCKET BUSINESS” - Most of the private space-faring news these days seems to be courtesy of SpaceX, but there are other fish in the sea. Or maybe stars in the sky would be a more apt comparison here. However you want to explain it, SpaceX isn’t the only game in town when it comes to private spaceflight. Vector Space Systems might not be a household name, but they’re aiming to be very much like one of the very biggest household names: McDonald’s. More (Source: Techaeris - Aug 5)
ELON MUSK CONFIRMS SPACEX IS ON TRACK TO SEND HUMANS INTO SPACE - SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk tweeted Thursday that he's looking forward to sending humans into space next year, confirming an earlier report by Popular Mechanics that the company's manned space flight is on track. Popular Mechanics issued its report late last month. Musk, who has been busy juggling events at this other company Tesla, got around to commenting on it Thursday. SpaceX and Boeing, both of which received contracts from NASA to build spacecraft to carry astronauts to the International Space Station, have changed launch plans from 2017 to 2018. In 2014, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.6 billion contract to carry crew to space. More (Source: Fortune - Aug 5)
LOCKHEED MARTIN TO BUILD $350M FUTURISTIC SATELLITE FACTORY - Lockheed Martin is spending big money to build the next generation of satellites. The defense and aerospace company announced Wednesday that it has started building a $350 million facility on its Waterton Canyon campus near Denver, Colorado. It's a new 266,000-square-foot "factory of the future" that Lockheed Martin says will allow it to make satellites faster and for less money. The company is a stalwart presence in the satellite and space industries. Right now, for example, it's making GPS III satellites for the U.S. Air Force and a Mars lander for NASA. More (Source: PA home page - Aug 4)
CHECK OUT THESE INCREDIBLE PHOTOS FROM THE ISS OF EARTH’S STRONGEST STORM IN 2017 - A monster typhoon has been swirling in the Northwest Pacific Ocean for over a week. On Sunday, it became the strongest storm on Earth so far this year, with 160-mph winds. It seems inevitable, given the projections, that this storm will track over Japan’s southern prefectures of Okinawa and Kagoshima as a very strong typhoon. On Wednesday morning, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center predicted it would be near northern Okinawa on Saturday evening, Eastern Time, as the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane. More (Source: Washington Post - Aug 4)
SPACEX TARGETING AUG. 13 FOR RESUPPLY LAUNCH TO SPACE STATION - The next delivery of science and supplies to the International Space Station could launch as soon as Aug. 13, NASA officials said this week. Commercial space company SpaceX is targeting a Sunday afternoon launch window for its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule from Kennedy Space Center's launch pad 39A. More Space News Headlines It will mark the 12th resupply mission, known as CRS 12, launched by SpaceX for the space station. More (Source: WKMG Orlando - Aug 4)
VEGA LAUNCHER ACHIEVES ON-TARGET DEPLOYMENT OF EARTH-IMAGING SATELLITES - Firing off a launch pad on the fringes of the Amazon rainforest, a European Vega rocket climbed into space Tuesday night and deployed a new optical surveillance craft for the Italian military and a French-Israeli environmental satellite to monitor vegetation, snow cover and coastal waterways. The Optsat 3000 and Venµs satellites lifted off at 0158:33 GMT Wednesday (9:58:33 p.m. EDT; 10:58:33 p.m. French Guiana time Tuesday) on the 10th flight of a Vega rocket, a four-stage booster primarily developed and manufactured in Italy. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 3)
TWO U.S. MILITARY SATELLITE LAUNCHES DELAYED INTO NEXT YEAR - Two U.S. military satellite launches planned for this fall from Cape Canaveral are being delayed to 2018 due to separate factors, the Air Force says. The fourth Advanced Extremely High Frequency protected communications spacecraft and fourth Space Based Infrared Systems-Geosynchronous missile tracking observatory had been slated for liftoff on Oct. 11 and Nov. 9, respectively, atop United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets. But both will slide to the next calendar year, according to the Pentagon. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 3)
NEXT SPACEX FLIGHT TO RESUPPLY SPACE STATION TARGETED FOR AUG. 13 - The next flight of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to deliver cargo to the International Space Station now is targeted for Aug. 13 at approximately 12:56 p.m. EDT from Launch Pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. More (Source: NASA - Aug 3)
ISRO TO LAUNCH A 'BACK-UP' NAVIGATION SATELLITE BY MONTH END - Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch its navigation satellite IRNSS-1H by the end of this month to augment the existing seven satellites of NavIC constellation, a senior ISRO official said. To be launched on board PSLV-C39, IRNSS-1H will be a "back up" navigation satellite for IRNSS-1A, one among the seven satellites in the constellation, as its three rubidium atomic clocks on board had stopped functioning. More (Source: Economic Times - Aug 2)
HARRIS CORP. TO LAUNCH SMALL SATELLITE 'PROOF OF CONCEPT' THIS YEAR - Harris Corporation in Melbourne plans to send a small satellite, about the size of a laptop, into space later this year in a “proof of concept” test that would take the company into a new market. The launch would mark the first time Harris designs what is known as a “smallsat” satellite, sends it into space on another company’s rocket, controls its operations from Florida and captures and processes the data it receives. More (Source: Orlando Sentinel - Aug 2)
