SPACEX LAUNCHES FINAL GPS III SATELLITE FOR THE U.S. SPACE FORCE - The U.S. Space Force launched its final Global Positioning System (GPS) III satellite into medium Earth orbit in the predawn hours of Tuesday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station occurred at 2:53:25 a.m. EDT (0653:25 UTC). The mission was delayed a day due to poor weather in the recovery zone for the first stage. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Apr 22)
CHINA RAMPS UP SATELLITE PRODUCTION CAPACITY AMID CONSTELLATION AMBITIONS - China is rapidly building a broad, diverse satellite manufacturing base capable of producing thousands of spacecraft annually, but faces bottlenecks in launch and uncertain demand. The country has already established dozens of facilities spanning state-owned institutes, commercial firms and regionally-backed clusters, with further future factories expected to take capacity to around 7,000 satellites per year, according to a space industry assessment. More (Source: SpaceNews - Apr 21)
ARTEMIS 2 AND TIANGONG SPACE STATION ASTRONAUTS SET RECORD FOR FARTHEST DISTANCE BETWEEN HUMANS - Here's another record that Artemis 2 broke. For a few moments on April 6, the four Artemis 2 moon astronauts and the three crewmates aboard China's Tiangong space station were farther away from each other than any other humans had ever been. Astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell noted the occasion in a series of X posts, in which he calculated the distances between Artemis 2's Orion capsule, named "Integrity," and Tiangong. More (Source: Space.com - Apr 20)
BLUE ORIGIN ROCKET REUSABLE BOOSTER LANDS BUT SATELLITE MISSES ORBIT - The reusable booster of the New Glenn rocket launched from Florida on Sunday by Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin touched down successfully but the rocket failed to deploy the AST SpaceMobile, opens new tab communications satellite it was carrying into the correct orbit. The launch was the latest chapter in Blue Origin's intensifying rivalry with Elon Musk's SpaceX. The rocket lifted off at around 7:25 a.m. ET (1125 GMT) from Cape Canaveral, with the booster touchdown coming about 10 minutes later. More (Source: Reuters - Apr 20)
'GLOBAL, 24/7, ALL-WEATHER RECONNAISSANCE COVERAGE': CHINA DEPLOYED "EYE OF SAURON" SATELLITE THAT CAN TRACK SHIPS — AND THE US NAVY — FROM ITS SAFE SKY ABODE - China has released radar images showing a geosynchronous orbit satellite successfully tracking a moving maritime target for the first time. The satellite locked onto the Towa Maru, a 340 meter Japanese tanker traversing rough seas near the Spratly Islands, from an altitude of 35,800 kilometers above Earth. This breakthrough could give Beijing continuous surveillance of US naval fleets across every ocean. More (Source: TechRadar - Apr 19)
THREE ESA-BUILT SATELLITES ON SHOW IN FRANCE - Three Earth observation satellites, developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) with European partners, and due to launch later this year, have completed their functional and environmental tests and are ready to travel to the European spaceport in French Guiana. But first, journalists were invited to have one last look. More (Source: European Space Agency - Apr 18)
CHINA'S SHENZHOU-21 ASTRONAUT CREW TO STAY IN SPACE AN EXTRA MONTH - China's Shenzhou-21 astronaut crew will stay in space for an extra month, after careful consideration from China's Manned Space Engineering Office, the country's state broadcaster reported on Friday. The Shenzhou-21 space rocket and its crew blasted off atop a Long March-2F rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northwest China on October 31. More (Source: Reuters - Apr 18)
STATION ORBITS HIGHER AS CREW RUNS NEW SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS - The International Space Station is orbiting higher today after the Progress 93 resupply ship, docked to the Zvezda service module, fired its engines for just over five minutes Wednesday night. The orbital reboost places the space station at the correct altitude for the upcoming Progress 95 cargo mission scheduled to resupply the Expedition 74 crew at the end of April. More (Source: NASA - Apr 18)
THE LOOMING RISK OF TOO MANY SATELLITES AND DEBRIS IN SPACE - There was nothing terribly remarkable about the Iridium 33 and Kosmos 2251 satellites—at least not at first. Iridium was a 1,500 lb. communications satellite the U.S. launched into space in 1997; Kosmos, was another communications satellite, also tipping the scales at 1,500 lb., that Russia sent aloft in 1993. That’s a lot of metal moving with a lot of speed—17,500 miles per hour—and it paid for ground controllers to keep the ships flying true. When it came to Iridium, that was relatively easy, with occasional thruster tweaks holding the satellite upright and moving it out of harm’s way. Kosmos was a different matter. More (Source: Time Magazine - Apr 17)
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