SPACEX LAUNCHED 29 STARLINK SATELLITES ON FALCON 9 ROCKET FROM CAPE CANAVERAL - SpaceX launched its penultimate planned flight in May, sending its Falcon 9 rocket flying from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Friday morning. The Starlink 10-53 mission will add another 29 broadband internet satellites to the company’s low Earth orbit megaconstellation. The network consi... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 30)
NASA IS HATCHING A 'FAST-PACED PLAN' TO BOOST THIS SPACE TELESCOPE. BUT FIRST, THEY'LL HAVE TO FIND IT - It's getting to be crunch time for a groundbreaking satellite-rescue mission. A private spacecraft called "Link" is set to lift off late next month to meet up with NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, which launched to low Earth orbit (LEO) in 2004 to hunt for powerful space explosions known as... More (Source: Space.com - May 30)
BLUE ORIGIN’S NEW GLENN ROCKET EXPLODES DURING PRELAUNCH TESTING AT CAPE CANAVERAL - A Blue Origin New Glenn rocket exploded on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday night, in a major setback for Blue Origin, the company founded by Jeff Bezos. The rocket erupted in a giant fire ball that engulfed the launch pad at 9 p.m. EDT (0100 UTC) as the engines ap... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 29)
SPACEWALKERS BACK INSIDE STATION AFTER SCIENCE HARDWARE WORK - Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergei Mikaev concluded their spacewalk outside the International Space Station at 4:23 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, lasting 6 hours, 5 minutes. Kud-Sverchkov and Mikayev finished their major objectives, including collecting two completed science experiment... More (Source: NASA - May 29)
US SPACE FORCE AWARDS SPACEX $2.29 BILLION CONTRACT FOR MILITARY SPACE DATA NETWORK - The U.S. Space Force has awarded SpaceX a $2.29 billion contract to build a secure, high-speed satellite communications network to connect military sensors and weapons platforms across the globe, the service announced on Tuesday. The fixed-price nontraditional contracting agreement covers ... More (Source: Reuters - May 28)
SPACEX LAUNCHES 24 STARLINK SATELLITES ON FALCON 9 ROCKET FROM VANDENBERG SFB - SpaceX followed up a picturesque Falcon 9 launch from Cape Canaveral Monday morning with another from Vandenberg Space Force Base Tuesday morning. The Starlink 17-37 mission, which was originally scheduled to launch on May 9, faced several launch delays throughout the month of May. The flight wen... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 27)
SHENZHOU-23 CREW ARRIVES AT TIANGONG AS CHINA MAPS PATH TO 2030 LUNAR LANDING - Three Chinese astronauts arrived at Tiangong space station Sunday, with one crewmember expected to become China’s first to stay in orbit for an entire year. The Long March 2F rocket carrying the Shenzhou-23 spacecraft lifted off at 11:08 a.m. Eastern (1508 UTC; 11:08 p.m. Beijing time) May 24 f... More (Source: SpaceNews - May 27)
SHENZHOU 23 LAUNCHES NEW CREW TO TIANGONG SPACE STATION - The Chinese space station Tiangong, permanently occupied since June 5, 2022, is about to receive a new set of crew members. Shenzhou 23 launched atop a Chang Zheng 2F (CZ-2F) from Site 91 at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Inner Mongolia province of northwest China.... More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - May 26)
A NASA SATELLITE LAUNCHED IN 1976 CARRYING A CARL SAGAN–DESIGNED PLAQUE SEALED INSIDE ITS CORE IS EXPECTED TO FALL BACK TO EARTH AND FINALLY BE OPENED - On 4 May 1976, NASA launched a satellite called LAGEOS-1 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It is one of the simplest objects ever put into orbit. It is a sphere about 60 centimetres across, weighing roughly 400 kilograms, with no electronics, no sensors, no power source, and no moving pa... More (Source: Space Daily - May 26)
NASA SETS COVERAGE FOR ROSCOSMOS SPACEWALK OUTSIDE SPACE STATION - NASA will provide live coverage on Wednesday, May 27, as two Roscosmos cosmonauts conduct a spacewalk outside the International Space Station. The spacewalk is scheduled to begin at approximately 10:15 a.m. EDT and last roughly five hours. Watch NASA’s live coverage beginning at 9:45 a.m. on NA... More (Source: NASA - May 26)
MUSK PRAISES “EPIC” SUPER HEAVY-STARSHIP LAUNCH - SpaceX launched a revamped Super Heavy-Starship rocket Friday on an “epic” flight to test more powerful engines, enhanced control systems and a host of other upgrades needed to streamline operations and improve safety and reliability. One of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 methane-fueled Rapto... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 24)
THE SATELLITE THAT HAS BEEN TRACKING EARTH'S WILDFIRES FOR 24 YEARS IS RUNNING OUT OF FUEL TO DODGE DEBRIS - NASA’s aging Aqua satellite, which has monitored Earth’s wildfires and climate patterns since 2002, is nearing the end of its operational life because it is running low on fuel needed to avoid space debris and maintain its orbit. Aqua has played a critical role in detecting fires early—sometim... More (Source: Space Daily - May 23)
UH-OH, THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION IS LEAKING AGAIN - NASA confirmed Thursday that the Russian segment of the International Space Station has begun leaking atmosphere into space again. It’s an old problem that NASA recently hoped was resolved. For more than half a decade, engineers from Roscosmos and NASA have been tracking the leak rate from a sm... More (Source: Ars Technica - May 22)
SPACE DEBRIS IS FORCING SATELLITES TO DODGE MORE OFTEN — COSTING US VITAL SCIENCE. 'THINGS WILL GET WORSE BEFORE THEY GET BETTER' - On the morning of Jan. 8, 2025, a red dot popped up on NASA's Fire Information for Resource Management System. It was the first sign of what would become one of California's worst wildfires in history, going on to claim a dozen lives and burn down thousands of homes in the Palisades. All the while, ... More (Source: Space.com - May 22)
SPACEX SCRUBS FIRST LAUNCH ATTEMPT OF ITS STARSHIP VERSION 3 ROCKET - SpaceX stood down from its first attempt to launch the third generation of its Starship rocket Thursday, May 21, from its company town in southern Texas, called Starbase. The company ran into multiple issues during the final minute of the countdown and ultimately scrubbed the mission at about 6:4... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 22)
SPACEX’S SUNRISE STARLINK LAUNCH ADDS 29 SATELLITES TO LOW EARTH ORBIT MEGACONSTELLATION - SpaceX launched a batch Starlink V2 Mini Optimized satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station about 20 minutes before sunrise Thursday morning. The morning lighting illuminated the plume of the rocket in a so-called ‘jellyfish effect’ for those viewing the launch fro... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 22)
WATCH ROCKET LAB LAUNCH PRIVATE JAPANESE EARTH-OBSERVING SATELLITE EARLY ON MAY 22 - Rocket Lab will launch an Earth-observing radar satellite for the Japanese company Synspective early Friday morning (May 22), and you can watch the action live. An Electron rocket carrying one of Synspective's Strix satellites is scheduled to lift off from Rocket Lab's New Zealand site on Friday ... More (Source: Space.com - May 22)
SPACEX LAUNCHES 24 STARLINK SATELLITES ON FALCON 9 ROCKET LAUNCH FROM VANDENBERG SFB - SpaceX launched its Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base Tuesday night to send a batch of its Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. The mission, dubbed Starlink 17-42, added another 24 broadband internet satellites to a constellation of spacecraft that consists of more than 10,000... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 21)
NASA SATELLITE WILL TEST ORBITAL 'GAS STATION' TECH TO HELP ASTRONAUTS REACH THE MOON AND MARS - A new NASA satellite will test critical technologies for storing and transferring super-chilled, cryogenic fuels in space in order to help astronauts reach the moon and potentially Mars someday. The Liquid Oxygen Flight demonstration (LOXSAT) will launch to orbit around the Earth later this year ... More (Source: Space.com - May 20)
