IMAGE: CHINA'S SPACE STATION TIANGONG-1 - This vivid image shows China's space station Tiangong-1 – the name means 'heavenly palace' – and was captured by French astrophotographer Alain Figer on 27 November 2017. It was taken from a ski area in the Hautes-Alpes region of southeast France as the station passed overhead near dusk. The station is seen at lower right as a white streak, resulting from the exposure of several seconds, just above the summit of the snowy peak of Eyssina (2837 m altitude). Several artefacts in the original have been removed. More (Source: Phys.org - Jan 12)
SPACE AGENCY SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHES 100TH SATELLITE CARTOSAT-2, PM CONGRATULATES SCIENTISTS - India on Friday launched a polar rocket with 31 satellites, including three Indian and 28 of six other nations from its spaceport here. The 44.4-metre tall Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C40) roared into a clear sky after a perfect lift-off at 9.29 a.m. after a 28-hour countdown. The 320-tonne rocket will eject the satellites one-by-one and deploy them into the earth’s lower orbit about 17 minutes and 18 seconds after the lift-off. More (Source: Hindustan Times - Jan 12)
ULA SCRUBS DELTA IV LAUNCH WITH NROL-47 - United Launch Alliance has scrubbed a Delta IV rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, set to carry the classified NROL-47 mission for the US National Reconnaissance Office. Liftoff will now be attempted on Friday with the window opening at 21:00 UTC. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Jan 12)
ISRO EYES ITS 100TH SATELLITE - India will launch ISRO's 100th satellite along with 30 others in a single mission on January 12 from Sriharikota, in a milestone event in the country's space history. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said it was "back in the game" with the launch, the first Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) mission after the unsuccessful launch of the navigation satellite IRNSS-1H in August last. "The 31 spacecrafts, including weather observation Cartosat-2 series will be launched by PSLV-C40," ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC) director M Annadurai said today. More (Source: Economic Times - Jan 11)
ULA DELTA IV LAUNCH WITH NROL-47 MOVED TO THURSDAY - United Launch Alliance will attempt to launch a Delta IV rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, carrying out the classified NROL-47 mission for the US National Reconnaissance Office. Liftoff is now scheduled for Thursday, 13:00 local time (21:00 UTC), following a scrub due to unacceptable weather on Wednesday. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Jan 10)
SECOND SUPERVIEW SATELLITE PAIR LAUNCHED FROM CHINA - A second satellite duo for Beijing Space View Technology successfully launched Tuesday atop a Long March 2D rocket, doubling the company’s high-resolution imaging capacity for sale on the global market. Burning a mixture of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide propellants, the 134-f00t-tall (41-meter) Long March 2D rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan space center in northeastern China’s Shanxi province at 0324 GMT Tuesday (10:24 p.m. EST Monday), according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 10)
CLASSIFIED SATELLITE FELL INTO OCEAN AFTER SPACEX LAUNCH, OFFICIAL CONFIRMS - A highly classified satellite launched by SpaceX this weekend ended up plummeting into the Indian Ocean, a U.S. official confirmed to ABC News. Following its launch from Florida's Cape Canaveral Sunday night, the satellite, codenamed Zuma, failed to remain in orbit, the official said. Northrop Grumman, the defense contractor that manufactured the payload -- reportedly a billion-dollar spy satellite -- told ABC News its mission is classified and declined to comment on the loss of the satellite. More (Source: ABC News - Jan 10)
FOX-1D SATELLITE SET TO LAUNCH THIS WEEK, CHINA TO LAUNCH FIVE NEW CUBESATS - The launch of AMSAT-NA’s Fox-1D CubeSat will take place from India on January 12 (UTC). The Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) flight had to be rescheduled from December 30. AMSAT Vice-President Engineering Jerry Buxton, N0JY, delivered Fox-1D to Spaceflight Inc in Seattle last November for integration. In addition to a Fox-1 U/V FM transponder, Fox-1D will carry several university experiments, including a MEMS gyro from Pennsylvania State University-Erie, a camera from Virginia Tech, and the University of Iowa’s High Energy Radiation CubeSat Instrument (HERCI) radiation mapping experiment. More (Source: ARRL - Jan 10)
U.S. CARGO SPACECRAFT SET FOR DEPARTURE FROM INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - After delivering more than 4,800 pounds of science and supplies to the International Space Station, a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft will depart the orbiting laboratory on Saturday, Jan. 13. NASA will provide live coverage of Dragon’s departure beginning at 4:30 a.m. EST. On Friday, Jan. 12, flight controllers will use the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach Dragon from the Earth-facing side of the station’s Harmony module. After Dragon is maneuvered into place, a ground-controlled command will release the spacecraft as NASA’s Expedition 54 Flight Engineers Joe Acaba and Scott Tingle monitor its departure at 5 a.m. Saturday. More (Source: Space Fellowship - Jan 9)
SECRET ZUMA SATELLITE'S FATE UNKNOWN AFTER SPACEX LAUNCH - SpaceX on Monday said a Falcon 9 rocket appeared to have performed as expected during its Sunday night launch of the government's classified Zuma mission, amid rumors of a possible mission failure. “We do not comment on missions of this nature; but as of right now reviews of the data indicate Falcon 9 performed nominally,” a SpaceX spokesperson said in a statement. Northrop Grumman, which was responsible for the spacecraft and contracted for the launch, did not immediately respond to questions. More (Source: USA Today - Jan 9)
THE DANGEROUS DOWNSIDE TO DARPA’S NEW REPAIR SATELLITE - The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's science wing, is developing a new type of satellite that can repair, refuel, and upgrade other satellites in high orbit. The Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites initiative could help extend the lives of expensive communications and surveillance spacecraft, thus reducing the need for replacement craft and also cutting down on the number of dead satellites cluttering up the space around Earth. Advertisement More (Source: Motherboard - Jan 9)
LONG MARCH 2D TO SEND A DUO OF SUPERVIEW-1 SATELLITES INTO ORBIT - China is gearing up to conduct its first orbital flight of 2018. The mission, scheduled for Tuesday, January 9, will employ a Long March 2D booster to send two SuperView-1 Earth-observing satellites into space. The rocket is currently scheduled to lift off at around 3:20 GMT (10:20 p.m. EST on January 8) from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center (TSLC) located in China’s Shanxi Province. More (Source: SpaceFlight Insider - Jan 8)
SPACEX LAUNCHES SECRETIVE ZUMA SPACECRAFT - After more than a month of delays, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket vaulted toward the skies at 8 p.m. ET Sunday with the secretive payload. It launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The space exploration firm, which is headed by Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, initially scheduled the Zuma mission last November. SpaceX gave a couple reasons for the schedule changes. At one point, SpaceX said it delayed the mission for "fairing testing." The fairing is the very top portion of the rocket that houses the payload. "Extreme weather" also slowed down the company's launch preparations. More (Source: CNN - Jan 8)
SPACEX TO LAUNCH SECRET NRO SATELLITE FOR US GOVT SUNDAY - Technology pioneer Elon Musk's aerospace firm, SpaceX, is preparing to launch a secretive spacecraft for an unnamed branch of the US government this weekend after postponing the event in November. Codenamed Zuma, the launch was initially scheduled for November from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at Merritt Island, Florida. SpaceX delayed sending Zuma into space after concerns emerged about the nose cone protecting the payload from dynamic pressure and aerodynamic heating on its way out of the atmosphere. More (Source: Space Daily - Jan 6)
HERE ARE THE MAJOR SATELLITE LAUNCHES FOR 2018 - The year 2018 beckons us to new hopes, ambitions and opportunities and the expectation that this year is going to be better than the preceding years – more calm, more peaceful, less precarious and geared towards innovation, rapid progress and momentous strides in the field of space technology. Many satellites and spacecraft will be lifted and sent into orbital this year, and this will contribute more to our understanding of space and other phenomena on earth that impact us, including climate change, natural disasters, agricultural patterns, dwindling ice cover and ocean salinity, along with fostering an enabling mechanism for new disruptions. More (Source: Geospatial World - Jan 6)
ISRO READY FOR FIRST SATELLITE LAUNCH IN 4 MONTHS AFTER FAILURE IN AUGUST - For more than four months, all Indian rockets have been grounded after the country's first private-sector manufactured satellite was declared unsuccessful in August last year. ISRO, the country's premier space agency that handled the launch seems to have regained confidence and is ready for a lift-off on January 12, if all goes well. In what is seen as a big embarrassment to ISRO, the 41st mission of the PSLV, which carried the satellite, failed on August 31 as the satellite's protective heat shield did not drop off. A group of scientists and experts were investigating what went wrong. More (Source: NDTV - Jan 6)
SECRETIVE SPACEX MISSION SLIPS, MAY DELAY FALCON HEAVY DEBUT - The company's most mysterious launch yet has been delayed for nearly two months and just got pushed back again. SpaceX is now hoping to launch "Zuma" into orbit via one of the company's Falcon 9 rockets on Sunday after nearly two months of delays. What exactly Zuma is, though, is still a big secret. Northrop Grumman confirmed to me in November that it had contracted with Elon Musk's commercial space venture to do the launch on behalf of a US government agency, which it didn't name. It provided no other details about the payload More (Source: CNET - Jan 5)
A NEW SATELLITE WILL TEST WAYS TO CAPTURE SPACE DEBRIS - There is an awful lot of junk in space. The latest data from the European Space Agency suggest some 7,500 tonnes of it now orbits Earth. It ranges from defunct satellites and rocket parts to nuts, bolts, shards of metal and even flecks of paint. But something as small as a paint fleck can still do serious damage if it hits a working satellite at a speed of several thousand kilometres an hour. There have already been more than 290 collisions, break-ups and explosions in space. Given the likelihood that thousands of small satellites, some only a few centimetres across, will be launched over the next decade, many worry that large volumes of space near Earth will soon be rendered risky places for satellites (especially big, expensive ones) to be. More (Source: The Economist - Jan 5)
CHECK OUT THIS PHOTO OF THE SPACE STATION PASSING BETWEEN THE EARTH AND THE SUN - Self-proclaimed amateur astronomer Alan Strauss took this photo of the sun on New Year's Day from a park in Tucson, Arizona. But do you see that faint stitching that's bisecting the sun's middle? That's the International Space Station. Strauss, the director of the University of Arizona's Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, has a PhD in education but enjoys dabbling in the cosmos like his colleagues. Sometimes, he said, when he finds out the ISS will be passing overhead, he finds out where he can see it and takes his telescope to catch the show. More (Source: CNN - Jan 5)
