THE CHEMICAL CONTAMINATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION IS OUT OF THIS WORLD (AND NOT IN A GOOD WAY - Concentrations of potentially harmful chemical contaminants on the International Space Station (ISS) could exceed those found in dust on floors in homes across the United States and Western Europe. That was the conclusion reached in a first-of-its-kind new study that looked at dust collected by the air filtration system on the orbiting space station. One day, this investigation's results could help engineers design and build spacecraft for long-term human jaunts to space. More (Source: Space.com - Aug 11)
SATELLITE IMAGES CAPTURE WILDFIRE DEVASTATION IN LAHAINA - Satellite images captured the devastation on Maui on Wednesday after a wildfire tore through Lahaina, a popular vacation destination on the island's west coast that was once the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii. In an image from Maxar Technologies, the historic area of Banyan Court — home to the island's oldest living banyan tree, at 150 years old — appears to have mostly been reduced to ash. More (Source: NBC News - Aug 11)
WATCH SPACEX LAUNCH 22 STARLINK SATELLITES EARLY FRIDAY - SpaceX will launch 22 more of its Starlink internet satellites early Friday (Aug. 11), and you can watch the action live. A Falcon 9 rocket topped with the Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Friday at 1:17 a.m. EDT (0517 GMT). Watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX, or directly via the company. Coverage will begin about five minutes before launch. More (Source: Space.com - Aug 11)
VIASAT NOT READY TO DECLARE VIASAT-3 AMERICAS A TOTAL LOSS - Viasat is holding off on a contingency plan for ViaSat-3 Americas in the hope it could still get some capacity from the broadband satellite despite its defective antenna, the operator’s chair and CEO Mark Dankberg said Aug. 9. Engineers have been able to get end-to-end measurements showing the rest of the satellite is operating as expected or better, Dankberg said during the company’s earnings call. More (Source: SpaceNews - Aug 10)
RUSSIAN COSMONAUTS MAKE SPACEWALK AT INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - A cosmonaut took a test ride on the end of a European robot arm during a six-hour 35-minute spacewalk outside the International Space Station Wednesday amid work to install three micrometeoroid debris shields and relocate a work platform. Cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin installed the debris shields over two areas on the Russian Rassvet module where an experiment airlock and radiator panel had been mounted for several years. Both were moved to the Nauka multi-purpose lab module during spacewalks earlier this year. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 10)
NORTHROP GRUMMAN AND FIREFLY’S ANTARES 330 AND MLV PLANS TAKE SHAPE - As the Cygnus S.S. Laurel Clark spends its first days berthed to the ISS, the successor to the Antares 230+ launch vehicle that launched it is taking shape in the facilities of Northrop Grumman (NG) and Firefly Aerospace. The Antares 330/Medium Launch Vehicle (MLV), scheduled for its first flight in mid-2025, is being developed to conduct ISS cargo flights from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia. Its development started after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 crippled the existing Antares supply chain. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Aug 10)
VYOMA ORDERS PILOT SATELLITES FOR DEBRIS-MONITORING CONSTELLATION - German startup Vyoma has ordered two pilot satellites for its proposed space debris-monitoring constellation from EnduroSat, the eight-year-old Bulgarian cubesat specialist. Luisa Buinhas, Vyoma co-founder and chief product officer, said Aug. 9 the spacecraft’s technical details are confidential but they would be based on a microsatellite platform between 50-500 kilograms. The plan is to launch the satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO) around the end of 2024 and Vyoma expects to announce a launch provider soon. More (Source: SpaceNews - Aug 10)
SPACEX LAUNCHES 15 STARLINK SATELLITES, LANDS ROCKET AT SEA - SpaceX launched 15 more of its Starlink internet satellites Monday night (Aug. 7) and landed the returning rocket on a ship at sea. A Falcon 9 rocket topped with the Starlink spacecraft lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base Monday at 11:57 p.m. EDT (8:57 p.m. local California time and 0357 GMT on Aug. 8). The Falcon 9's first stage came back to Earth as planned, landing on the SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You about 9.5 minutes after launch. More (Source: Space.com - Aug 9)
CHINA LAUNCHES FENGYUN-3F METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE TO ORBIT - China has added a new satellite to its fleet of meteorological spacecraft. A Long March 4C rocket lifted off from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert on Aug. 2 at 11:47 p.m. EDT (0347 GMT; 11:47 a.m. Beijing Time on Aug. 3). Orange smoke from the rocket’s hypergolic propellant billowed out upon ignition, with purple exhaust pushing the rocket into blue skies. Insulation tiles, used to keep propellant at optimum temperatures, fell from the rocket as it climbed. More (Source: Space.com - Aug 9)
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