PROGRESS CONTINUES TOWARD NASA’S BOEING CREW FLIGHT TEST TO STATION - NASA and Boeing are working to complete the agency’s verification and validation activities ahead of Starliner’s first flight with astronauts to the International Space Station. While Boeing is targeting March to have the spacecraft ready for flight, teams decided during a launch manifest evaluation that a launch in April will better accommodate upcoming crew rotations and cargo resupply missions this spring.   More
(Source: NASA - Oct 29)

RUSSIA RENAMED ITS AMBITIOUS SATELLITE PROGRAM AFTER PUTIN MISSPOKE ITS NAME - It was always abundantly clear that the leader of the Russian space corporation Roscosmos from 2018 to 2022, Dmitry Rogozin, sought to kowtow to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now we have an anecdote from Putin himself that highlights how much. The story concerns a satellite constellation now known as Sfera (or Sphere, in English), a modestly ambitious constellation of 264 satellites. The Sphere constellation is intended to provide broadband Internet service from middle-Earth orbit to Russia and high-resolution Earth observation satellites.   More
(Source: Ars Technica - Oct 29)

CHINA HAS SENT ITS YOUNGEST-EVER ASTRONAUT CREW TO THE TIANGONG SPACE STATION - When China’s first astronaut Yang Liwei blasted off into space in 2003, it was a history making moment that declared his country’s arrival as an emerging space power. Two decades on, China has become a major presence in space – a status that mirrors its growing economic, political and military ascendency on Earth. It now has its own permanent outpost in orbit – a fully operational space station – and routinely rotates crews to live and work there.    More
(Source: CNN - Oct 27)

CHINA TO SEND YOUNGEST-EVER CREW TO SPACE STATION - China will send its youngest-ever crew of astronauts to the Tiangong space station this week, officials said Wednesday, as Beijing pursues plans for a manned mission to the moon by the end of the decade. Tiangong is the crown jewel of Beijing's space program, which has also landed robotic rovers on Mars and the moon and made China the third country to put humans in orbit.   More
(Source: Phys.org - Oct 27)

SPACE FORCE WANTS ABILITY TO REFUEL MILITARY SATELLITES IN ORBIT - Space tankers being developed by a Denver-based tech company could soon keep U.S. military satellites in orbit longer. The Space Force awarded a $25.5 million contract last month to Astroscale U.S. Inc. to develop and deliver an in-orbit refueler by 2026, the service announced in a Sept. 19 news release. The firm is a subsidiary of the Tokyo-based Astroscale Holdings Inc., a private orbital debris removal company.   More
(Source: Stars and Stripes - Oct 27)

NASA SETS COVERAGE FOR ROSCOSMOS SPACEWALK OUTSIDE SPACE STATION - NASA will provide live coverage as two Roscosmos cosmonauts conduct a spacewalk outside the International Space Station Wednesday, Oct. 25, to install communications hardware and inspect a portion of the orbital complex. Coverage begins at 1:45 p.m. EDT on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency's website. The spacewalk is expected to begin at 2:10 p.m. and could last up to seven hours.   More
(Source: PR Newswire - Oct 25)

NASA’S SPACEX CRS-29 MISSION FLIES RESEARCH TO THE SPACE STATION - The 29th SpaceX commercial resupply services (CRS) mission for NASA carries scientific experiments and technology demonstrations, including studies of enhanced optical communications and measurement of atmospheric waves. The uncrewed SpaceX Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida no earlier than Nov. 5.   More
(Source: NASA - Oct 25)

CHINA LAUNCHES NEW REMOTE SENSING SATELLITE - China on Tuesday successfully launched a new remote sensing satellite into space from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province. A Long March-2D carrier rocket carrying the satellite Yaogan-39 lifted off at 4:03 a.m. (Beijing Time). The Long March-2D rocket was developed by the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, a subsidiary of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.   More
(Source: Xinhua - Oct 25)

US SPACE FORCE'S 1ST OFFICIAL PAINTING SHOWS MILITARY SPACE PLANE INTERCEPTING ADVERSARY SATELLITE - The United States Space Force has unveiled an official painting depicting a space plane intercepting an adversary satellite, perhaps illustrating a hint of what we can expect if orbital warfare is in our future. Space Operations Command (SpOC), which provides orbital warfare and intelligence capabilities to the U.S. Space Force, unveiled the painting during a ceremony at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado on Oct. 20. The artwork, titled "High Ground Intercept," was commissioned with artist Rick Herter and is SpOC's first official painting.   More
(Source: Space.com - Oct 25)

Previous Next