NASA HAILS HISTORIC SPACE MILESTONES OF 2023 IN INSPIRING NEW VIDEO - t has been a busy year for NASA with the agency's solid list of historic missions and inspiring milestones that continue to push the limits of human exploration. The space agency shared a new video showcasing its 2023 achievements, ranging from the successful return of its first asteroid sample all the way to plans for a new nuclear thermal rocket engine meant for future crewed missions to Mars. It also outlines some of the progress made with the Artemis program, an ambitious endeavor aimed at returning humans to the moon. More (Source: Space.com - Dec 28)
HISTORIC SPACEX FALCON 9 BOOSTER TOPPLES OVER AND IS LOST AT SEA - A piece of America’s space history is now on the ocean’s floor. During its return voyage to Port Canaveral in Central Florida, a SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster toppled over and broke in half. This particular booster, tail number B1058, was coming back from its record-breaking 19th mission when it had its fatal fall. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Dec. 23 carrying 23 Starlink satellites. The booster made a successful landing eight and a half minutes after launch on the drone ship ‘Just Read the Instructions’ which was stationed east of the Bahamas. SpaceX said in a statement on social media that it succumbed to “high winds and waves.” More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 27)
CHINA LAUNCHES 3 SATELLITES FROM SEA - China on Tuesday successfully launched a Long March-11 carrier rocket into space, sending three satellites into planned orbit. The Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center launched the rocket from waters off the coast of Yangjiang, south China's Guangdong Province, at 6:39 a.m. (Beijing Time). The satellites, Shiyan-24C, will be mainly used for space science and technology experiments. It was the 503rd mission of the Long March carrier rocket series. More (Source: Xinhua - Dec 27)
PROJECT KUIPER: AMAZON'S ANSWER TO SPACEX'S STARLINK PASSES 'CRUCIAL' TEST - Amazon's upcoming satellite broadband network, dubbed "Project Kuiper," just passed a key test test that paves the way for a 2024 launch. Similar to SpaceX's Starlink, Project Kuiper is Amazon's plan to provide high-speed internet by launching and connecting 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). The firm launched two prototype satellites in October and began testing the systems required for the network to operate. One key test was validating the optical inter-satellite link (OISL) technology, which uses infrared lasers to send data between the spacecraft. More (Source: Space.com - Dec 27)
CHINA LAUNCHES NEW BEIDOU SATELLITES, ROCKET BOOSTER LANDS NEAR HOUSE - China added a new pair of satellites to its Beidou positioning and navigation system late Monday, but spent stages from the launch landed within inhabited areas. A Long March 3B equipped with a Yuanzheng-1 upper stage lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 10:26 p.m. Eastern Dec. 25 (0326 UTC, Dec. 26), successfully delivering two Beidou satellites into medium Earth orbit (MEO). More (Source: SpaceNews - Dec 27)
CHINA LAUNCHES FOUR METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITES - China successfully sent four meteorological satellites into space from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on Monday. The satellites, belonging to the Tianmu-1 meteorological constellation, were launched by a Kuaizhou-1A carrier rocket at 9:00 a.m. (Beijing Time) and have entered the planned orbit. They will be mainly used to provide commercial meteorological data services. It was the 23rd flight mission of the Kuaizhou-1A rockets. More (Source: Xinhua - Dec 26)
ASTRONAUTS IN SPACE BEAM HOLIDAY WISHES TO EARTH FOR CHRISTMAS (VIDEO) - Astronauts on the International Space Station are sending holiday cheer to Earth with a festive video just in time for Christmas. Clad in red and green Santa hats, NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara joined the station's Expedition 70 commander Andreas Mogensen of the European Space Agency and Satoshi Furukawa of Japan to share what it's like to spend the holidays off Earth. More (Source: Space.com - Dec 26)
SPACEX FALCON 9 ROCKET LAUNCHES 2 GERMAN MILITARY SATELLITES - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off with two radar reconnaissance satellites for the German military on Sunday morning (Dec. 24). The Falcon 9 rocket launched the SARah-2 mission to low Earth orbit (LEO) from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base at 8:11 a.m. EST (1311 GMT; 5:11 a.m. local California time). The flight had originally been slated for Saturday (Dec. 23) but was pushed back a day to allow for additional preflight checks. More (Source: Space.com - Dec 25)
SHENZHOU-17 ASTRONAUTS CONDUCT FIRST SPACEWALK TO REPAIR SOLAR ARRAY - China’s Shenzhou-17 astronauts embarked on their first extravehicular activity Thursday to address minor damage to a Tiangong space station solar array. Mission commander Tang Hongbo and Tang Shengjie began a roughly 7.5-hour extravehicular activity (EVA), or spacewalk, Thursday. The pair reentered Tiangong through the Wentian science module’s EVA hatch at 8:35 a.m. Eastern (1335 UTC) Dec. 21, according to the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO). More (Source: SpaceNews - Dec 25)
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