OPEN COSMOS MANTIS + PLATERO SATELLITES REACH ORBIT WITH OPENCONSTELLATION LAUNCH - The launches mark a significant milestone for Open Cosmos as both satellites will join MENUT launched earlier this year as part of the OpenConstellation, a global, shared EO satellite infrastructure built and managed by the company. Data collected from OpenConstellation satellites can be accessed by organizations and businesses of all sizes, as well as national and regional governments to address challenges around the climate crisis, energy, natural resources and more. This is part of Open Cosmos’s wider aim to democratize access to critical space data, while keeping high levels of governance and security. More (Source: SatNews - Nov 14)
SPACEX LAUNCHES O3B MPOWER COMMUNICATION SATELLITES ON ITS 84TH MISSION OF 2023 - SpaceX launched the SES O3b mPOWER mission on Sunday (Nov. 12), a flight that placed two communication satellites into medium Earth orbit (MEO). The Falcon 9 rocket ferrying these satellites lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 4:08 p.m. EST (2108 GMT). The Falcon 9's first stage came back to Earth and made a vertical touchdown on the company's drone ship about 8.5 minutes after liftoff. The ship, known as "A Shortfall of Gravitas," was waiting nearby in the Atlantic Ocean; the rocket's upper stage will not be recovered, as is standard for Falcon 9 flights. More (Source: Space.com - Nov 13)
NEW SATELLITE WILL DETECT AND SHARE CO2 DATA FROM INDIVIDUAL FACILITIES - Canadian emissions monitoring company GHGSat on Saturday launched a satellite aimed at detecting carbon dioxide emissions from individual facilities like coal plants and steel mills from space for the first time. The satellite, named Vanguard, launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, GHGSat said. More (Source: Reuters - Nov 12)
SPACEX DRAGON CARGO SHIP DOCKS AT ISS WITH LASER EXPERIMENT AND MORE - A SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule arrived at the International Space Station early Saturday (Nov. 11) carrying tons of fresh supplies for the orbiting lab's astronaut crew. SpaceX launched the robotic Dragon resupply ship atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday evening (Nov. 9), kicking off the company's CRS-29 cargo mission for NASA. The Dragon docked with the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday at 5:07 a.m. EST (1007 GMT), about 14 minutes earlier than scheduled. More (Source: Space.com - Nov 12)
SPACEX LAUNCHES MORE THAN A HUNDRED PAYLOADS ON FALCON 9 MISSION FROM VANDENBERG - For the fourth time in 2023, SpaceX launched a smallsat rideshare mission to low Earth orbit with a multitude of payloads. The Transporter-9 mission lifted of at the opening of a 55-minute window at 10:49 a.m. PST (18:49 UTC) from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. SpaceX said the launch included 113 payloads, 90 of which were deployed directly from the Falcon 9 rocket. The other 23 satellites will deploy from orbital transfer vehicles at a later time. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Nov 12)
ASTRONAUTS DROPPED A TOOL BAG DURING AN ISS SPACEWALK, AND YOU CAN SEE IT WITH BINOCULARS - Some astronomy targets are less celestial in nature than others. Joining stars, planets, nebulas, and galaxies as a target for skywatchers is now a surprisingly bright tool bag floating through the space around Earth. The bag of tools gave NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara the slip on Nov. 2, 2023, as they were conducting a spacewalk outside of the International Space Station (ISS). The tool bag is now orbiting our planet just ahead of the ISS with a visual magnitude of around 6, according to EarthSky. That means it is slightly less bright than the ice giant Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun. As a result, the bag — officially known as a crew lock bag — is slightly too dim to be visible to the unaided eye, but skywatchers should be able to pick it up with binoculars. More (Source: Space.com - Nov 12)
SPACEX TO LAUNCH 90 PAYLOADS ON TRANSPORTER-9 FALCON 9 MISSION FROM VANDENBERG - For the fourth time in 2023, SpaceX will launch a smallsat rideshare mission to low Earth orbit with a multitude of payloads. The Transporter-9 mission is set to launch during a 55-minute window starting at 10:49 a.m. PST (18:49 UTC) from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. SpaceX said the launch will include 113 payloads, 90 of which will be deployed directly from the Falcon 9 rocket. The other 23 satellites will deploy from orbital transfer vehicles at a later time. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Nov 11)
LONG MARCH 3B LAUNCHES CHINASAT-6E COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE - China sent its ChinaSat-6E communications satellite toward geostationary orbit Thursday with a launch from Xichang spaceport. A Long March 3B rocket lifted off into the night sky above Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 6:23 a.m. Eastern (1123 UTC), Nov. 9. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC) confirmed launch success and the payload within an hour of launch. ChinaSat-6E (Zhongxing-6E) entered its planned geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO). It will take over the radio and television broadcasting role of the ChinaSat-6B satellite launched in July 2007 and positioned at 115.5° East. More (Source: SpaceNews - Nov 10)
SPACEX WILL LAUNCH IRELAND'S 1ST-EVER SATELLITE THIS MONTH - Ireland is all set to see its first-ever satellite reach orbit. The Educational Irish Research Satellite 1, or EIRSAT-1, was built by University College Dublin students as part of the European Space Agency (ESA) Academy's Fly Your Satellite! (FYS) program. The gamma-ray astronomy cubesat project began in 2017 and is now due to fly on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at the end of November. More (Source: Space.com - Nov 10)
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