NORTH KOREA SAYS ITS LATEST SATELLITE LAUNCH EXPLODED IN FLIGHT - North Korea said its attempt to launch a new military reconnaissance satellite ended in failure on Monday when a newly developed rocket engine exploded in flight. The attempt came just hours after Pyongyang issued a warning that it would try to launch a satellite by June 4, in what would have been its second spy satellite in orbit.   More
(Source: CNBC - May 28)

SPACEX TO LAUNCH 23 STARLINK SATELLITES FROM FLORIDA ON TUESDAY MORNING - SpaceX is set to launch yet another batch of its Starlink internet satellites from Florida on Tuesday morning (May 28). A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to loft 23 Starlink spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday during a four-hour window beginning at 7:30 a.m. EDT (1130 GMT). SpaceX will webcast the launch live via its X account, beginning about five minutes before the window opens.   More
(Source: Space.com - May 28)

NASA LAUNCHES SMALL CLIMATE SATELLITE TO STUDY EARTH’S POLES - The first of a pair of climate satellites designed to study heat emissions at Earth’s poles for NASA is in orbit after lifting off atop Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in Māhia, New Zealand at 7:41 p.m. NZST (3:41 a.m. EDT) on Saturday. The agency’s PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment) mission consists of two shoebox-size cube satellites, or CubeSats, that will measure the amount of heat Earth radiates into space from two of the coldest, most remote regions on the planet.   More
(Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA - May 27)

NASA SAYS BOEING’S STARLINER CREW CAPSULE CAN SAFELY FLY ‘AS IS’ WITH PROPULSION SYSTEM HELIUM LEAK - After nearly three weeks of exhaustive tests and data analysis, NASA managers said Friday they are confident Boeing’s oft-delayed Starliner crew capsule can safely launch “as is” June 1, saying a small helium leak in the ship’s propulsion system does not pose a flight safety concern. Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said even if a suspect shirt-button-size rubber seal in the plumbing leading to one specific thruster failed completely in flight — resulting in a leak rate 100 times worse than what’s been observed to date — the Starliner could still fly safely.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 27)

JAPAN SAYS NORTH KOREA WILL LAUNCH A MILITARY SPY SATELLITE BY JUNE 3 - Japan said Monday that North Korea has informed it of a plan to launch a satellite by June 3, an apparent effort to put its second military spy satellite into orbit. The launch notification came as leaders of South Korea, Japan and China gathered in Seoul for their first trilateral meeting later Monday. Japan’s coast guard said it has been notified by North Korea about its planned launch of a “satellite rocket,” with safety cautioning in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and China and east of the Philippine island of Luzon beginning Monday through midnight June 3.   More
(Source: New York Post - May 27)

SPACE FORCE FOUND A SATELLITE LOST IN SPACE FOR 25 YEARS - he short NBC News documentary Battlefield Space took viewers inside Space Force, the newest branch of the United States military, for a look at its efforts to safeguard the final frontier. The organization’s stated mission is both broad and vague: to secure the interests of the U.S. and deter aggression in, from, and to space. While that might conjure images of space soldiers piloting tactical spacecraft in orbital dogfights, it mostly amounts to keeping an eye on the skies. The many duties of Space Force include but are not limited to Space Domain Awareness, which mostly amounts to detection, identification, tracking, and cataloging of satellites and space debris.   More
(Source: Syfy - May 24)

SPACEX LAUNCHES FIRST SATELLITES FOR NEW US SPY CONSTELLATION - SpaceX on Wednesday launched an inaugural batch of operational spy satellites it built as part of a new U.S. intelligence network designed to significantly upgrade the country's space-based surveillance powers, the first deployment of several more planned this year. The spy network was revealed in a pair of Reuters reports earlier this year showing SpaceX is building hundreds of satellites for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, an intelligence agency, for a vast system in orbit capable of rapidly spotting ground targets almost anywhere in the world.   More
(Source: Reuters - May 24)

AIRBUS TO BUILD ESA SPACE SCIENCE SATELLITE - The European Space Agency has awarded Airbus Defence and Space a contract to build a spacecraft that will provide a unique view of the sun. ESA held a signing ceremony May 22 in Brussels for a contract valued at 340 million euros ($369 million) for the Vigil spacecraft. Airbus will build Vigil at its facilities at Stevenage in the United Kingdom. Slated to launch in 2031, Vigil will operate at the Earth-sun L-5 Lagrange point, trailing the Earth by 60 degrees in its orbit. It will complement spacecraft at the L-1 point, between the Earth and the sun, by viewing regions of the sun before they rotate into view of the Earth, thus providing advance warning of solar activity.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - May 24)

SPACEX LAUNCHES 23 STARLINK SATELLITES ON 5TH ANNIVERSARY OF ITS FIRST DEDICATED STARLINK FLIGHT - SpaceX completed its third Falcon 9 launch in less than 48 hours with a mission from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. As with its launch Wednesday night, SpaceX sent another 23 Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit. Either serendipitously or intentionally, the Starlink 6-63 mission fell on the fifth anniversary of the first dedicated Starlink launch, Starlink v0.9 on May 23, 2019. The launch times of the two missions are also coincidentally very similar. Thursday night’s flight lifted off at 10:45 p.m. EDT (0245 UTC) and its five-year counterpart launched at 10:30 p.m. EDT (0230 UTC).   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 24)

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