CHINA’S SECRETIVE NEW 'THOUSANDS SAILS' SATELLITES ARE AN ASTRONOMER'S NIGHTMARE, 1ST OBSERVATIONS REVEAL - China's recently launched "Thousand Sails" satellites are so bright they can clearly be seen with the naked eye at night, far exceeding the limits proposed by astronomical authorities, experts say. Many more of the mysterious satellites will be launched over the next few years — some of which c... More (Source: Live Science - Oct 15)
SPACEX'S CREW-8 ASTRONAUTS TO DEPART ISS FOR TRIP HOME SOON AMID WEATHER DELAYS - SpaceX's Crew-8 astronauts will have to wait a bit longer to begin their trip home to Earth after plans to depart the International Space Station Sunday morning (Oct. 13) were postponed by bad weather at their splashdown site. Crew-8's Dragon capsule, named Endeavour, was scheduled to undock from... More (Source: Space.com - Oct 14)
'STUNNING WAS THE WORD': ASTRONAUTS SNAP AMAZING AURORA PHOTO FROM ISS DURING SEVERE GEOMAGNETIC STORM - The auroras were pretty special on Thursday night (Oct. 10) — especially if you got to see them from orbit. NASA astronauts Don Pettit and Matthew Dominick are in that very exclusive club, getting a bird's-eye view of the amazing auroral displays — which were supercharged by a recent solar st... More (Source: Space.com - Oct 14)
IRAN SENDS SATELLITES TO RUSSIA FOR ROCKET LAUNCH, TASNIM REPORTS - Iran has sent two locally made satellites to Russia to be put into orbit by a Russian space vehicle, the semi-official news agency Tasnim reported Saturday, in the latest space cooperation between the two U.S.-sanctioned countries. The development of Kowsar, a high-resolution imaging satellite, a... More (Source: VOA News - Oct 13)
SPACEX PULLS OFF MID-AIR LAUNCH PAD CAPTURE OF DESCENDING SUPER HEAVY BOOSTER - In one of the most dramatic, high-risk space flights to date, SpaceX launched a gargantuan Super Heavy-Starship rocket on an unpiloted test flight Sunday and then used giant “mechazilla” robot arms on the pad gantry to pluck the returning first stage out of the sky in an unprecedented feat of en... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 13)
CHINA LAUNCHES THIRD HIGH ORBIT INTERNET SATELLITE - China launched a new communications satellite towards geostationary orbit Thursday, although its precise role remains undisclosed. A Long March 3B lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center, southwest China, at 9:50 a.m. Eastern, Oct. 10 (1350 UTC). The China Aerospace Science and Technol... More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 12)
SHIJIAN-19 REUSABLE SATELLITE LANDS AFTER 2 WEEKS IN SPACE - China’s first retrievable and reusable satellite returned to Earth late Thursday following two weeks of experiments in low Earth orbit. The Shijian-19 satellite touched down at 10:39 p.m. Eastern Oct. 10 (0239 UTC, Oct. 11) at the Dongfeng landing site near Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in th... More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 11)
OCEAN EXPERTS RAISE CONCERNS OVER DEORBITING THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - NASA is faced with the challenge of safely deorbiting, in one fell swoop, over 400 tons of space hardware in a few years. As of now, the agency plans on deorbiting the International Space Station in early 2031 by dragging it back toward Earth and dumping it into an isolated patch of the Pacific Ocea... More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 11)
X-37B BEGINS NOVEL SPACE MANEUVER - The X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV-7) will begin executing a series of novel maneuvers, called aerobraking, to change its orbit around Earth and safely dispose of its service module components in accordance with recognized standards for space debris mitigation. Since December 28, 2023, the United S... More (Source: United States Space Force - Oct 10)
NASA “REALLY LOOKING FORWARD” TO NEXT STARSHIP TEST FLIGHT - As SpaceX prepares for the test flight of its Starship vehicle, NASA is closely watching as it waits for the company to achieve the next milestones on development of the lunar lander version of the vehicle. SpaceX announced late Oct. 7 that it was preparing to launch Starship on its fifth integra... More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 10)
DRAGON'S-EYE VIEW: ASTRONAUT CAPTURES AMAZING SHOTS OF HURRICANE MILTON FROM SPACE - NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick has given us dramatic, Dragon's-eye views of Hurricane Milton churning its way toward landfall. Dominick posted a timelapse video on X (formerly Twitter) today, showing Hurricane Milton through the window of the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule Endeavour, which is docked... More (Source: Space.com - Oct 8)
NASA IS WORKING ON A PLAN TO REPLACE ITS SPACE STATION, BUT TIME IS RUNNING OUT - The next year is crucial for the future of NASA and its plans to extend human activity in low-Earth orbit. For the first time in decades, the US space agency faces the not-too-distant prospect of failing to have at least one crew member spinning around the planet. Over the next several months, NA... More (Source: Ars Technica - Oct 7)
BRIGHTNESS OF FIRST CHINESE BROADBAND CONSTELLATION SATELLITES ALARMS ASTRONOMERS - The first satellites of a Chinese broadband constellation are significantly brighter than those of Western systems, posing a new challenge for astronomers. In a paper posted on the arXiv preprint server Sept. 30, a group of observational astronomers reported on observations of a set of 18 Qianfan... More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 7)
ULA LAUNCHES SECOND VULCAN FLIGHT, ENCOUNTERS STRAP-ON BOOSTER ANOMALY - United Launch Alliance fired off a next-generation Vulcan rocket Friday in the second of two “certification” test flights needed before the new launcher can be used to carry high-priority national security payloads for the U.S. Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office. One of two so... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 7)
SPACEX RESOLVES MISHAP MOVES STARLINK LAUNCH INTO ONEWEB 20 SLOT POSTPONING ONEWEB - A batch of 20 microsatellites for the OneWeb satellite constellation, which is intended to provide global Internet broadband service for individual consumers, was scheduled to launch on Tuesday, October 8 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 11:49 PM – 12:23 AM PDT however as of O... More (Source: SatNews - Oct 3)
ASTRONAUTS STRANDED IN SPACE ARE NOW ONE STEP CLOSER TO RETURNING HOME - On Saturday afternoon, SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral for a mission that marked the first human spaceflight to lift off from the company's Space Launch Complex-40. The mission, however, will likely be remembered for something different. In August, ... More (Source: Smithsonian Magazine - Oct 3)
U.S. FACES STIFF COMPETITION FROM CHINA IN SATELLITE REMOTE SENSING - A new report by a group of national security think tanks sheds light on the rapidly evolving global commercial remote sensing industry and delves into the heated competition between the United States and China. Titled “Gold Rush: The 2024 Commercial Remote Sensing Global Rankings,” the repo... More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 2)
SPACEX DRAGON WITH CREW-9 ABOARD DOCKS TO STATION - NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov arrived at the International Space Station Sunday, as the SpaceX Dragon Freedom docked to the orbiting complex at 5:30 p.m. EDT while the station was 260 statute miles over Botswana. Following Dragon’s link up to the Harmony m... More (Source: NASA - Oct 1)
SPACEX POSTPONES MONDAY’S ONEWEB SATELLITE CONSTELLATION LAUNCH DUE TO A BOOSTER MISHAP AFTER CREW-9 LAUNCH — TO RESUME AFTER “WE BETTER UNDERSTAND ROOT CAUSE” - The launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to send up 20 microsatellites for the OneWeb satellite constellation from Vandenberg Space Force Base, originally planned for late Sunday night, has been postponed due to a mishap that occurred Saturday with the landing of a second stage booster associated with... More (Source: SatNews - Oct 1)
