SPACEX LAUNCHES 23 STARLINK SATELLITES ON ITS SECOND SPACEFLIGHT IN A DAY - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 23 Starlink internet satellites to orbit from Florida tonight (Oct. 21) on the company's second mission of the day. The Falcon 9 is lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Saturday at 10:17 p.m. EDT (0217 GMT on Oct. 22). The Falcon 9's first stage came back to Earth for a vertical landing tonight, touching down about 8.5 minutes after launch on the drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 22)
INDIA WANTS TO BUILD ITS OWN SPACE STATION BY 2035 - South Asia’s largest country has new plans to leave orbit. On Tuesday, India’s Prime Minister revealed that the republic is aiming to set up the Bharatiya Antariksha Station (Indian Space Station) by 2035 and to send the first Indian to the moon by 2040. This news comes as the country gets ready to launch a key test flight on Saturday for its first crewed mission, Barron’s reports. And with Modi’s ambitious perspective, the venture likely won’t be the last. More (Source: Yahoo - Oct 21)
WATCH LIVE AS NASA ASTRONAUTS CONDUCT SPACEWALK, UPGRADE SPACE STATION - Two NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station will conduct a spacewalk Monday, Oct. 30, to complete maintenance activities at the orbital complex. Live coverage of the spacewalk begins at 6:30 a.m. EDT on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. The spacewalk is scheduled to begin about 8:05 a.m., and last about six-and-a-half hours. More (Source: NASA - Oct 21)
CHINA ROLLS OUT ROCKET FOR SHENZHOU-17 MISSION TO TIANGONG - A crew of three astronauts is set to launch to China’s Tiangong space station next week for a six-month-long mission. A Long March 2F rocket was rolled out to the pad at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, northwest China, early Oct. 19. The rocket is tipped with the Shenzhou-17 crew spacecraft and a telltale escape system atop the payload fairing. The 62-meter-long rocket was transferred vertically across the roughly 1,500 meters from the assembly building to the pad at around 30 meters per minute. More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 20)
COMMERCIAL SPACE COMPANIES SAY CUT RED TAPE OR U.S. WILL LOSE ITS LEAD IN SPACEFLIGHT - The three companies who have flown people to space and back, Blue Origin, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, joined two experts at a Congressional hearing to press for regulatory improvements, warning the U.S. risks losing its lead in spaceflight. The 1.5-hour-long hearing before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Space and Science was mainly focused on a regulatory framework called “Part 450,” which was designed to help streamline the process of issuing launch licenses under the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation, which goes by the acronym AST. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 20)
CANADA TO LAUNCH NEW SATELLITES TO MONITOR CLIMATE CHANGE, GATHER MILITARY DATA - Canada aims to add more satellites to its flagship Earth observation program "as soon as possible" thanks to a fresh funding infusion, a senior space official said in an exclusive interview. The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) will receive substantial new government funding to extend the long-standing Radarsat satellite series, a keystone of the country's climate change strategy and international disaster response, not to mention military surveillance. The agency allocation is $1.012 billion CDN (roughly $740,000 USD) over 15 years, a substantial boost to annual spending. More (Source: Space.com - Oct 20)
NASA DELAYS SPACEWALK A 2ND TIME DUE TO LEAK ON INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - NASA officials have again postponed one of two forthcoming spacewalks in the wake of a recent coolant leak on the Russian segment of the International Space Station. A spacewalk last set for Thursday (Oct. 19) will now happen later in 2023 as NASA and Russia's federal space agency, Roscosmos, continue their analysis, NASA officials stated. The coolant used on the International Space Station (ISS) is ammonia, which requires extra decontamination procedures if spacesuited astronauts are nearby. More (Source: Space.com - Oct 19)
NASA ASTRONAUT SNAPS PHOTO OF SOLAR ECLIPSE FROM THE SPACE STATION - Not all of the skywatchers who enjoyed last weekend's solar eclipse were confined to planet Earth. On Saturday (Oct. 14), observers along a narrow swath of land from the Oregon coast southeast down through Central and South America were treated to an annular solar eclipse: The moon blocked all of the sun's disk save for a thin band around the outside, which blazed as a bright "ring of fire." More (Source: Space.com - Oct 19)
SPACEX LAUNCHES STARLINK SATELLITES ON 16TH RE-FLIGHT FOR FALCON 9 FIRST STAGE - SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 22 Starlink internet satellites to orbit this evening (Oct. 17). The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station today at 8:39 p.m. EDT (0039 GMT on Oct. 18). The rocket's first stage came back to Earth, touching down at sea on the drone ship Just Read the Instructions about 8.5 minutes after launch. It was the 16th flight for this particular rocket's first stage — one shy of the company's reuse record, which was set just last month. More (Source: Space.com - Oct 19)
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