NORTH KOREA PLANS ROCKET LAUNCH THAT SOUTH CALLS ‘PROVOCATION’ - North Korea plans to launch a satellite, drawing condemnation from South Korea’s defense minister, who said the regime may instead be preparing a long- range missile test. Preparations for the launch of an “experimental communications satellite” are making “brisk headway,” the official Korea Central News Agency said today, citing an unidentified spokesman from the national space agency.    More
(Source: Bloomberg.com - Feb 24)

NASA DELAYS SPACE SHUTTLE LAUNCH A FOURTH TIME - NASA delayed the launch of space shuttle Discovery for a fourth time on Friday amid valve concerns, and managers are uncertain when the flight will take place. Following a 13-hour meeting at Kennedy Space Center, shuttle managers decided against launching next week. The launch had been targeted for no sooner than Feb. 27; no new date was set. Officials said they believe they have a realistic shot at launching Discovery to the international space station before mid-March. After that, the shuttle would have to get in line behind a Russian Soyuz launch with a new space station crew, and the next opportunity for Discovery would be after April 6.   More
(Source: Associated Press - Feb 23)

NASA TO LAUNCH ITS FIRST CARBON-TESTING SATELLITE TO MEASURE GREENHOUSE GAS - NASA plans to launch a satellite Monday that will measure concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the Earth's atmosphere, providing scientists with the most complete and precise set of measurements yet of the greenhouse gas. The mission's purpose is to map global CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, which scientists can use to pinpoint sources of CO2 emissions and areas where CO2 is being removed from the air through absorption, called "sinks." Currently, researchers make only about one hundred measurements per week of atmospheric CO2 from sites around the globe, primarily by hand-filling empty vials with air and shipping them back to laboratories to be tested. I   More
(Source: NewsHour - Feb 23)

GEOEYE SATELLITE GETS FULL OPERATIONAL CAPABILITY CERTIFICATION - GeoEye Inc said its earth-imaging satellite GeoEye-1 received full operational capability certification from National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), sending its shares up more than 7 percent after the bell. GeoEye said it would begin delivering images to the agency on Feb. 23 and get a monthly revenue of $12.5 million. GeoEye-1, financed partly by a $500 million contract with the NGA, was launched in September 2008. Commercial operations started on Feb. 5 this year.   More
(Source: Reuters - Feb 23)

SATELLITE DEBRIS MAY FORCE NASA TO SCRUB SHUTTLE LAUNCH - The cloud of debris created by the collision of two satellites earlier this month may threaten an upcoming space shuttle Atlantis mission to the Hubble Space Telescope, according to a report in Nature News. Without the repair and maintenance mission, currently scheduled for May, the Hubble telescope's days could be numbered. Shuttle missions to the International Space Station, which orbits at an altitude of roughly 200 miles, would be far enough below the debris trails, at 500 miles up, to be considered safe.    More
(Source: Fox News - Feb 20)

SATELLITE CRASH: WHO'S TO BLAME? - The in-orbit collision that destroyed an operational Iridium communications satellite over Siberia last week underscores the difficulty of predicting and avoiding such events despite the increasingly sophisticated orbital surveillance technology in use, U.S. government and industry experts said. According to some experts, this Feb. 10 incident, the first known collision between two fully intact satellites - Iridium 33 and Russia's spent Cosmos 2251 communications craft - is a sign of things to come as the orbital environment gets more crowded.    More
(Source: Space.com - Feb 18)

RAINING DEBRIS SPOTTED IN TEXAS, POSSIBLY RELATED TO SATELLITES COLLISION - The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) received calls from law enforcement across Texas Sunday morning reporting spotting of a "fireball" in the sky that could be related to the recent collision of U.S. and Russian satellites, local media reported Sunday. Roland Herwig, a spokesman for the FAA's southwestern region, said local law enforcement reported the fireball and an "explosion," which is suspected to be a sonic boom, a sound wave generated when an object moves faster than the speed of sound, according to the newspaper Houston Chronicle.    More
(Source: Xinhua - Feb 16)

NASA AGAIN POSTPONES DISCOVERY LAUNCH - The US space agency NASA has again postponed the launch of the space shuttle Discovery, saying it will not occur before February 27. The launch, initially scheduled for February 12, had already been delayed until February 19. NASA said Friday it will hold a news conference on February 20, following a review of space shuttle Discovery's readiness for flight and an assessment of shuttle flow control valve testing. The shuttle Endeavour had its flow control valve damaged during its mission in November.    More
(Source: AFP - Feb 14)

SPACE DEBRIS PUTS ALBERTA OFFICIALS ON HIGH ALERT - Rural Alberta dodged impact with Russian space debris, according to the province's emergency officials. The North American Aerospace Defence Command was tracking the debris, estimated to be about the size of a school bus, after 10 a.m. local time on Friday. At first the debris was set to fall in Calgary, but officials later determined it would strike near Kneehill or Wheatland County, about 100 kilometers east of Calgary.   More
(Source: CBC News - Feb 14)

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