NORTH KOREA NOTIFIES NEIGHBORING JAPAN IT PLANS TO LAUNCH SATELLITE IN COMING DAYS - North Korea on Monday notified neighboring Japan that it plans to launch a satellite in coming days, which may be an attempt to put its first military reconnaissance satellite into orbit. Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said he ordered Japan’s Self Defense Force to shoot down the satellite or debris, if any entered Japanese territory. Japan's coast guard said the notice it received from North Korean waterway authorities said the launch window was from May 31 to June 11, and that the launch may affect waters in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and east of the Philippines' Luzon Island. More (Source: ABC News - May 30)
SPACEX ROCKET SENDS ARABSAT COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE INTO ORBIT - SpaceX kicked off Memorial Day weekend with an overnight launch Saturday from Cape Canaveral, boosting a nearly five-ton communications satellite into orbit for Arabsat, a multinational consortium providing TV and video broadcast services across the Middle East. SpaceX scrubbed a launch attempt early Wednesday at Cape Canaveral due to thick cloud cover, then delayed the liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket to later in the week to wait for improved weather and to make room for the test-firing of United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket at a neighboring launch pad. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 30)
SPACE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY TO LAUNCH 13 SATELLITES IN LATE JUNE - The Space Development Agency is preparing to launch at least 13 satellites in late June, the agency’s director Derek Tournear said May 26. This will be SDA’s second launch of Tranche 0 satellites for its proliferated low Earth orbit constellation. Tranche 0 is a 28-satellite demonstration constellation. The first 10 spacecraft — eight communications satellites made by York Space and two missile-detection satellites made by SpaceX — launched April 2 on a SpaceX Falcon 9. More (Source: SpaceNews - May 30)
RUSSIA’S PROGRESS MS-23 RESUPPLY MISSION ARRIVES AT SPACE STATION - Roscosmos launched its Progress MS-23 spacecraft to the International Space Station on Wednesday. Liftoff, atop a Soyuz-2.1a rocket, occurred 12:56 UTC (6:56 p.m. local time), from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. It docked without issue a few hours later. Progress MS-23 is the latest in a long series of uncrewed Progress cargo spacecraft which Russia uses to deliver supplies to the International Space Station (ISS). It is the 23rd flight of the Progress MS vehicle and is also designated Progress 84P by NASA – which signifies that it is the 84th Progress cargo delivery mission to the ISS. This number includes missions flown by earlier versions of the Progress vehicle. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - May 27)
SOUTH KOREA SAYS HOMEGROWN SPACE ROCKET PUT SATELLITES INTO ORBIT - South Korea's domestically made space rocket delivered a commercial grade satellite into orbit for the first time on Thursday, the country's science minister said, a breakthrough in its ambitions to compete in a space race with its Asian neighbours. The Nuri rocket lifted off from Naro Space Center on the southern coast of South Korea at 6:24 p.m. (0924 GMT) in its third flight after technical glitches caused the launch to be cancelled a day earlier. More (Source: Reuters - May 26)
ROCKET LAB LAUNCHES 2 TINY NASA HURRICANE-WATCHING PROBES TO ORBIT - The second set of NASA's TROPICS cubesats launched on Thursday night (May 25), completing the agency's hurricane-studying miniconstellation. The two tiny satellites lifted off atop a Rocket Lab Electron vehicle from the company's Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand's North Island on Thursday at 11:46 p.m. EDT (0346 GMT on May 26). The Electron deployed the cubesat pair as planned about 34 minutes after liftoff, Rocket Lab confirmed via Twitter. More (Source: Space.com - May 26)
RUSSIAN SUPPLY SHIP LAUNCHES TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - Russia’s Progress MS-23 cargo freighter launched Wednesday from Kazakhstan on a mission hauling more than 2.7 tons of fuel, food, experiments, and supplies to the International Space Station. The Progress MS-23 supply ship lifted off at 8:56:07 a.m. EDT (1256:07 UTC) from the Site 31 launch complex at Baikonur, located in a remote part of Kazakhstan east of the Aral Sea. Russian ground teams at Baikonur rolled the Progress MS-23 spacecraft and its Soyuz rocket to the launch pad Sunday, then raised the launcher vertical for final mission preparations. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 25)
VIRGIN ORBIT TO CEASE OPERATIONS, SELL ASSETS OF RICHARD BRANSON'S SATELLITE LAUNCHER - Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit is shutting down less than two months after the satellite launch start-up filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, according to a Tuesday company announcement. Virgin Orbit will cease operations and sell its assets to four winning bidders, the company announced Tuesday. Those bidders include three aerospace companies — Rocket Lab, Stratolaunch and Vast Space subsidiary Launcher — with combined bids totaling almost $36 million, according to court documents. More (Source: ABC News - May 25)
ARABSAT 7B TO BE SLC-40’S QUICKEST TURNAROUND - SpaceX is set to launch the Arabsat 7B satellite to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) for Arabsat atop its Falcon 9 rocket. The launch is currently scheduled for May 23 at 11:25 PM EDT (03:25 UTC on May 24) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40), at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. This launch will mark the quickest turnaround time of SLC-40 ever at four days, 21 hours, and five minutes. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - May 24)
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