RUSSIA WANTS TO SEND COSMONAUTS TO CHINA SPACE STATION - Roscosmos is looking at ways to send its cosmonauts to the Chinese space station, launching from sites in either Russia or French Guiana. During a press conference at the recently concluded Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) in St. Petersburg, Russia, on June 15, Dmitry Rogozin, director general of Roscosmos, revealed that Russia is in discussions with China about crewed flights to the Chinese space station. More (Source: Space.com - Dec 4)
NASA ASTRONAUTS REPLACE FAULTY SPACE STATION ANTENNA DURING SPACEWALK - Two NASA astronauts completed a 6-1/2 hour spacewalk on Thursday to replace a faulty antenna on the International Space Station, a mission NASA said carried slightly higher risk posed by orbital debris left from a Russian missile test weeks ago. Astronauts Thomas Marshburn and Kayla Barron exited an airlock of the orbiting research lab some 250 miles (400 km) above Earth to begin their work at 6:15 a.m. Eastern time (1115 GMT), an hour ahead of schedule. More (Source: Reuters - Dec 3)
ARIANESPACE WILL LAUNCH TWO EUROPEAN NAVIGATION SATELLITES ON A SOYUZ ROCKET FRIDAY. WATCH IT LIVE. - Update: Arianespace has postponed today's launch and is now targeting launch on Friday (Dec. 3). Liftoff is set for Dec. 3 at 7:23 p.m. EST (0023 GMT). Arianespace plans to send two new European Galileo navigation satellites to space tonight (Dec. 2) and you will be able to watch it live online. An Arianespace Soyuz rocket will launch two navigation satellites into orbit at 7:27 p.m. EST (9:27 p.m. local time at the Guiana Space Center launch site in Kourou, French Guiana, or Friday, Dec. 3, at 0027 GMT). France-based Arianespace is expected to webcast the launch live on YouTube, which you can watch here, once it is available. Arianespace typically begins its launch webcasts about 20 minutes before liftoff. More (Source: Space.com - Dec 3)
SPACEX ENTERS BUSY DECEMBER WITH STARLINK LAUNCH FROM FLORIDA - icking off a busy end to the company’s 2021 launch campaign, SpaceX successfully launched a group of Starlink satellites from Florida on Thursday evening. The Group 4-3 mission, carrying 48 Starlink satellites and two rideshare payloads to low Earth orbit, lifted off from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 6:12 PM EST (23:12 UTC). The 45th Weather Squadron at Patrick Space Force Base forecasted a greater than 90% chance of favorable weather for launch. If the launch had been delayed for any reason, a backup opportunity existed on Friday, with another greater than 90% chance of acceptable weather forecasted. No such delay occurred, and launch went as scheduled on Thursday. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Dec 3)
U.S. SATELLITES ARE BEING ATTACKED EVERY DAY ACCORDING TO SPACE FORCE GENERAL - U.S. Space Force's General David Thompson, the service's second in command, said last week that Russia and China are launching "reversible attacks," such as electronic warfare jamming, temporarily blinding optics with lasers, and cyber attacks, on U.S. satellites "every single day." He also disclosed that a small Russian satellite used to conduct an on-orbit anti-satellite weapon test back in 2019 had first gotten so close to an American one that there were concerns an actual attack was imminent. More (Source: The Drive - Dec 3)
TWO BLACKSKY SATELLITES HITCHING RIDE ON STARLINK MISSION - BlackSky said Tuesday it is launching two optical Earth observation satellites as rideshare payloads on a SpaceX Starlink mission planned for liftoff this week from Cape Canaveral. The mission is set for launch Thursday, one day later than the previous schedule. The rideshare mission will mark the second time BlackSky satellites have hitched a ride into orbit on a SpaceX Starlink launch. In August 2020, two BlackSky spacecraft took off from Cape Canaveral aboard a Falcon 9 rocket with 57 Starlink satellites. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 2)
US PEGASUS ROCKET DEBRIS TO APPROACH SPACE STATION ON DECEMBER 3 — ROSCOSMOS - A fragment of a US Pegasus rocket will fly at a distance of 5.4 km from the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday afternoon, the press office of the Russian space agency Roscosmos reported on Wednesday. "A stage fragment of a Pegasus carrier rocket launched in 1994 will approach the International Space Station on the afternoon of December 3. According to the data of the Main Information and Analysis Center of the Automated Warning System of Hazardous Situations in near-Earth Space, the object is expected to approach the ISS at a minimum distance of 5.4 km at 13:33 Moscow time on Friday," the statement says. More (Source: TASS - Dec 2)
NOAA’S GOES-T SATELLITE 2022 LAUNCH SCHEDULED - NOAA’s GOES-T, the third in the GOES-R Series of advanced weather observing and environmental monitoring satellites, arrived in Florida today to begin final preparations for launch, which is currently scheduled for March 1, 2022. The launch was recently scheduled for February 16, 2022. However, shifts in launch dates for missions scheduled ahead of GOES-T prompted NASA, NOAA, and United Launch Alliance (ULA) to coordinate the new date. More (Source: WeatherNation - Dec 2)
SPACEX'S STARLINK INTERNET SATELLITES FORCED TO DODGE RUSSIAN ANTI-SATELLITE TEST DEBRIS - Debris from Russia's anti-satellite missile test last month has forced some SpaceX Starlink internet satellites to dodge in order to avoid in-orbit collisions, the company's CEO Elon Musk said Tuesday (Nov. 30). The Russian anti-satellite missile test, which shattered the defunct nearly 2-ton surveillance satellite Cosmos 1408 into thousands of pieces on Nov. 15, prompted indignation from the international space community. Companies and governmental organizations including NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and Earth-observation company Planet, issued statements condemning Russia's act as irresponsible and malicious. More (Source: Space.com - Dec 2)
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