SPACEX DELAYS FIRST STARLINK SATELLITES WITH DIRECT-TO-CELL CAPABILITY - SpaceX is looking to rebound from a week of scuttled launches with a Falcon 9 launch from California. The Starlink 7-9 mission will feature another batch of 21 satellites heading up to low Earth orbit, something that has become almost routine for the company. However, this late night Friday mission is unique in that it will include the first six Starlink satellites that feature direct-to-cell capabilities. SpaceX stated that the new function “will enable mobile network operators around the world to provide seamless global access to texting, calling and browsing… on land, lakes or coastal waters.”
Update 9:45 p.m. EST: The launch is now scheduled for December 28 at 9:09 p.m. PST (12:09 a.m. EST, 0509 UTC).   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 16)

SPACEX TO LAUNCH 3RD PRIVATE ASTRONAUT MISSION TO THE ISS FOR AXIOM SPACE ON JAN. 9 - Axiom Space says it hopes SpaceX's private astronaut missions will become cheaper in the future. Houston-based Axiom plans to launch its third mission, Ax-3, on Jan. 9, 2024 to the International Space Station using SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecraft. Four commercial astronauts will ride on board. Axiom Space does not disclose per-seat pricing, but estimates pegged April 2022's Ax-1 mission, which SpaceX also launched, at $55 million per astronaut.    More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 15)

AMAZON’S PROJECT KUIPER SATELLITES ARE A STEP CLOSER TO COMPETING WITH ELON MUSK'S STARLINK - Project Kuiper, an upcoming satellite internet provider from Amazon, has successfully tested laser communications between its satellites. The announcement marks a major milestone in Amazon’s path to catching up with SpaceX’s Starlink, which already has some 2 million users in over 60 countries. According to Amazon, the prototype satellites KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2 were able to send and receive data at up to 100 Gbps, which is much higher than standard residential internet data transfer speeds. The testing was conducted in November.   More
(Source: Quartz - Dec 15)

ROCKET LAB RETURNS TO FLIGHT WITH SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH OF JAPANESE SATELLITE - Rocket Lab just bounced back from a launch failure. The company's Electron rocket lifted off from New Zealand tonight (Dec. 14) a little after 11:00 p.m. EST (0400 GMT and 5:00 p.m. New Zealand time on Dec. 15), carrying the Tsukuyomi-1 satellite for the Japanese Earth-imaging company iQPS skyward. All went according to plan; Electron deployed Tsukuyomi-1 into low Earth orbit as scheduled, about 56.5 minutes after launch.   More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 15)

SPACEX STANDING DOWN FROM STARLINK 6-34 MISSION WEDNESDAY DUE TO POOR ATLANTIC WEATHER - SpaceX is standing down from a launch attempt of the Starlink 6-34 mission onboard its Falcon 9 rocket. It comes less than a day after they had to scrub the launch at the T-1 minute mark due to strong, ground-level winds at Cape Canaveral. The Tuesday night scrub of the Falcon 9 came within an hour of announcing the delay of the Falcon Heavy launch for the U.S. military. It had planned the launch Monday night from nearby pad 39A.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 14)

NASA WILL “BABY” TEMPO TO EXTEND ITS LIFE - The first NASA satellite to measure air pollution hourly shows so much promise that space agency officials are already thinking about ways to extend its life. “We want TEMPO to last for 10 years, if possible,” Barry Lefer, NASA tropospheric composition program manager, said Dec. 12 at the American Geophysical Union annual meeting here. “So, we are going to baby it.” TEMPO, short for Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution, was sent aloft in April as a hosted payload on Intelsat 40e, a geostationary communications satellite.    More
(Source: SpaceNews - Dec 14)

EIRSAT-1, IRELAND'S 1ST SATELLITE, MAKES SPACE HISTORY - Ireland has joined the space club with the launch of its first satellite to low-Earth orbit, setting the stage for students of all ages across the Emerald Isle to get involved in space science. The Educational Irish Research Satellite-1 (Eirsat-1) blasted into space from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Dec. 1. Around an hour and a half after launch, the tiny satellite, which is not much larger than a house brick, unfolded and deployed its antenna.    More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 14)

CUBESAT OFFERS TEMPLATE FOR FUTURE ASTRONOMY MISSIONS - The first NASA-funded small satellite for exoplanet science is continuing to gather data well beyond its expected lifetime. The Colorado Ultraviolet Transit Experiment, known as CUTE, a six-unit cubesat equipped with a telescope to funnel data to a spectrograph, traveled to sun-synchronous low-Earth orbit in September 2021 as a secondary payload on the NASA- U.S. Geological Survey Landsat 9 Earth-observation mission.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Dec 13)

SPACEX SCRUBS FALCON HEAVY LAUNCH OF SECRETIVE X-37B MILITARY SPACEPLANE - SpaceX is standing down from its launch attempt of the USSF-52 mission due to “a ground side issue.” The scrub was followed by a delay of the Falcon 9 launch for the Starlink 6-34 mission as well. SpaceX said they are looking at a backup opportunity no earlier than Tuesday, Dec. 12, at 8:14 p.m. EST (0114 UTC).   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 12)

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