NASA TO COVER NORTHROP GRUMMAN'S 21ST CARGO SPACE STATION DEPARTURE - After delivering more than 8,200 pounds of supplies, scientific investigations, commercial products, hardware, and other cargo to the orbiting laboratory for NASA and its international partners, Northrop Grumman's uncrewed Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled to depart the International Space Station on Friday, March 28. Watch NASA's live coverage of undocking and departure at 6:30 a.m. EDT on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media. Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft is pictured in the grips of the Canadarm2 robotic arm shortly after its capture (Credits: NASA). Northrop Grumman's Cygnus spacecraft is pictured in the grips of the Canadarm2 robotic arm shortly after its capture (Credits: NASA). This mission was the company's 21st commercial resupply mission to the space station for NASA. More (Source: PR Newswire - Mar 23)
CHINA IS PRACTICING ‘DOGFIGHTING’ WITH SATELLITES AS IT RAMPS UP SPACE CAPABILITIES: US SPACE FORCE - China is practicing “dogfighting” satellites as part of its expanding capabilities in space, according to the United States Space Force, which warned that Washington’s key rivals are closing the technology gap as space becomes increasingly critical to security on Earth. The Space Force observed “five different objects in space maneuvering in and out and around each other in synchronicity and in control,” its vice chief of space operations Gen. Michael A. Guetlein said Tuesday at a defense conference. More (Source: CNN - Mar 22)
NASA DEFENDS DECISIONS ABOUT ASTRONAUTS, SAYS THEY NEVER WERE 'STRANDED' - After the safe return Tuesday of two astronauts left behind for months on the International Space Station, the White House characterized the pair as "stranded" and trumpeted their return as a "rescue." Those are words that NASA has been resisting for months. It made for an awkward situation in a post-splashdown press conference, when NASA administrators insisted they could have brought Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams home at any time, while also seeking not to contradict the president. More (Source: Phys.org - Mar 21)
SATELLITE OPERATORS WANT BETTER SPACE WEATHER MODELS - Satellite operators need better space weather models to maximize the life of their satellites and to avoid collisions in low Earth orbit. The growth in the population of satellites and debris in orbit, driven by megaconstellations like SpaceX’s Starlink, has provided a new impetus to efforts to better model how space weather events can increase the density of the upper atmosphere and thus the drag satellites in low orbits can experience. More (Source: SpaceNews - Mar 21)
SPACEX TO LAUNCH RECONNAISSANCE SATELLITES FOR THE NRO ON A FALCON 9 ROCKET FROM VANDENBERG - The National Reconnaissance Office is preparing to launch its eighth batch of satellites to support its proliferated architecture constellation. The mission includes a number of notable milestones for the Falcon 9 rocket program, including a record-fast turnaround time for its booster. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will carry an unspecified number of satellites that are believed to be Starshield, a government variant of the Starlink satellites that are built by SpaceX in partnership with Northrop Grumman. This will be SpaceX’s 450th Falcon 9 launch to date. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Mar 21)
MINI-SATELLITE PAVES THE WAY FOR QUANTUM MESSAGING ANYWHERE ON EARTH - Researchers have broken a distance record in quantum communication by sending a secret encryption key nearly 13,000 km from China to South Africa, using a cheap, lightweight ‘microsatellite’. The satellite was able to send pulses of laser light, put into special quantum states, from a rooftop in Beijing to another at Stellenbosch University near Cape Town. The pulses formed a quantum key that was used to encrypt two images — one of China’s Great Wall and one showing part of Stellenbosch’s campus. More (Source: Nature - Mar 20)
ROCKET LAB LAUNCHES FINAL SET OF KINéIS SATELLITES - Rocket Lab has completed the deployment of a constellation of Internet-of-Things satellites for French company Kinéis with a launch March 17. An Electron rocket lifted off from Pad A of Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 9:31 p.m. Eastern. The payload of five satellites for Kinéis were deployed by the rocket’s kick stage into sun-synchronous orbits at altitudes of 650 kilometers a little more than an hour later. More (Source: SpaceNews - Mar 19)
SWARMS OF SATELLITES ARE HARMING ASTRONOMY. HERE’S HOW RESEARCHERS ARE FIGHTING BACK - In the next few months, from its perch atop a mountain in Chile, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will begin surveying the cosmos with the largest camera ever built. Every three nights, it will produce a map of the entire southern sky filled with stars, galaxies, asteroids and supernovae — and swarms of bright satellites ruining some of the view. Astronomers didn’t worry much about satellites photobombing Rubin’s images when they started drawing up plans for the observatory more than two decades ago. But as the space around Earth becomes increasingly congested, researchers are having to find fresh ways to cope — or else lose precious data from Rubin and hundreds of other observatories. More (Source: Nature - Mar 19)
SATELLITES POWERED BY SOLID METAL COULD ONE DAY USE SPACE JUNK FOR FUEL - Space is getting crowded — humans have now placed over 20,000 satellites into orbit since the start of the space age, and there are plans to launch thousands more over the next few years. Some of those satellites have already burned up in the atmosphere or fallen back to Earth, often into the ocean, but more than 13,000 are still up there. About a fifth are inactive, simply orbiting as as space junk. Over the last couple of decades, hundreds of these dead satellites have collided to create millions of pieces of shrapnel. More (Source: CNN - Mar 19)
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