NASA LAUNCH TO HELP STUDY HEALTH, CARRY VIRGINIA STUDENTS' SATELLITES - Officials say the next launch from Virginia's spaceport to the International Space Station will help with more than 40 scientific investigations including into Alzheimer's, hearts, atmospheric carbon dioxide and free-flying robots. News outlets report Northrop Grumman's commercial resupply mission for NASA will lift off Wednesday afternoon from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. A rocket will take an unmanned spacecraft with about 7,500 pounds of payload (3,400 kilograms) to the ISS.   More
(Source: WHSV - Apr 13)

NEW VIDEO OF INTELSAT 29E SATELLITE REVEALS DRAMATIC “ANOMALY” - After another satellite went out of service in geostationary orbit this week, at least temporarily, new data now suggests the spacecraft may not be recoverable. On Wednesday, the satellite operator Intelsat acknowledged a "service outage" on its Intelsat 29e satellite, which had affected maritime, aeronautical, and wireless operator customers in Latin America, the Caribbean, and North Atlantic. During the incident on Sunday, April 7, the spacecraft's propulsion system "experienced damage that caused a leak of the propellant on board the satellite," Intelsat said. At that time, Intelsat was periodically losing communication with the satellite, but the company was working with its manufacturer, Boeing, to restore the connection.   More
(Source: Ars Technica - Apr 13)

WHEN IT COMES TO SATELLITES, LESS CAN BE MORE - For generations, military satellites have been massive, and massively expensive. In recent years, however, an increasing consensus among defense leaders and military analysts has emerged that a new satellite architecture is needed. Rather than rely on a few big satellites, they say, critical military functions — such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance or positioning, navigation and timing — could come from swarms of smaller satellites. To ease that transition, they suggest the Department of Defense should work more closely with industry.    More
(Source: C4ISRNet - Apr 12)

INDIAN ANTI-SATELLITE TEST PROVES EARLY TEST FOR SPACE FENCE - Still in testing mode, the U.S. Air Force Space Fence on Kwajalein Atoll detected India’s March 27 anti-satellite test and issued a break-up alert. “We happened to be up during an endurance test and we were very excited to see that the system performed nominally,” Matthew Hughes, Lockheed Martin Space Fence and Space Surveillance programs business development manager, told SpaceNews. “Space fence is all about the ability to identify break ups, maneuvers, closely spaced objects, proximity operations, new foreign launches.”   More
(Source: Space News - Apr 12)

SPACEX FALCON HEAVY STICKS TRIPLE ROCKET LANDING WITH 1ST COMMERCIAL LAUNCH - SpaceX's Falcon Heavy successfully launched its first operational mission today (April 11), sticking a triple-rocket landing more than a year after its demo mission catapulted a cherry-red Tesla and a dummy nicknamed Starman into space. The megarocket, dubbed the most powerful launcher in operation, blasted off at 6:35 p.m. EDT (2235 GMT). It lifted off here from the same site that once hosted NASA's Apollo moon missions and its fleet of space shuttles: historic Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. About 34 minutes later, the rocket deployed Arabsat-6A, an advanced communications satellite that will provide internet and communications services to residents of the Middle East, Africa and parts of Europe.    More
(Source: Space.com - Apr 12)

ARISS SSTV TRANSMISSIONS APRIL 11-14 - ARISS Russia is planning Slow Scan Television (SSTV) image transmissions on 145.800 MHz FM from the International Space Station. The transmissions begin Thursday, April 11, 2019 around 18:00 UTC and run continuously until approximately 18:00 UTC on Sunday, April 14, 2019. This event uses a computer in the ISS Russian Segment, which stores images that are then transmitted to Earth using the ARISS amateur radio station located in the Service Module which employs the Kenwood TM D710E transceiver.   More
(Source: AMSAT-UK - Apr 11)

IRAN SAYS IT WILL PUSH AHEAD WITH SATELLITE LAUNCHES DESPITE US OPPOSITION - Iran said on Tuesday it would press ahead with the launch of three satellites into orbit this year despite a US move to curb Tehran’s ballistic missile program which Washington says has been advanced by the satellite activity. President Donald Trump said on Monday he would name Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, a move partly intended to curb the Islamic Republic’s development of ballistic missiles.   More
(Source: New York Post - Apr 11)

INTELSAT-29E SATELLITE SUFFERS FUEL LEAK, SPOTTED DRIFTING ALONG GEO ARC - Intelsat’s first Epic-series high-throughput satellite, Intelsat-29e, is drifting in orbit after back-to-back anomalies, forcing the company to shift customers to other spacecraft. Intelsat said April 10 that the propulsion system on the three-year-old satellite “experienced damage” — the cause of which it did not identify — resulting in a fuel leak. While attempting to restore services from the satellite, Intelsat said a second problem surfaced that resulted in a loss of communications with the satellite.   More
(Source: Space News - Apr 11)

NASA HIGHLIGHTS SCIENCE ON NEXT CYGNUS MISSION TO ISS - NASA will host a media teleconference at 1 p.m. EDT Wednesday, April 10, to discuss select science investigations and technology demonstrations launching on the next Northrop Grumman commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station. Northrop Grumman is targeting Wednesday, April 17, for the launch of its Cygnus spacecraft on an Antares rocket from pad 0A at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia.   More
(Source: Space Daily - Apr 11)

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