SPACEX SENDS 40 MORE ONEWEB INTERNET SATELLITES INTO ORBIT - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Monday night with 40 more internet satellites for OneWeb, nudging the network closer to full operational capability. The Falcon 9 booster returned to Cape Canaveral for landing eight minutes later. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 11:50:17 p.m. EST (0450:17 GMT). The launcher thundered into the sky on the power of 1.7 million pounds of thrust from nine kerosene-fueled Merlin main engines, kicking off SpaceX’s second mission of the year.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 10)

A DEAD NASA SATELLITE FROM THE 1980S JUST FELL TO EARTH TO MEET ITS FIERY DEMISE - A vintage NASA satellite launched in the 1980s and long-since turned to space junk met a fiery fate late Sunday as it fell back to Earth, NASA said today.  The huge Earth observation satellite, called the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS), plunged back to Earth Sunday night (Jan. 8) at 11:04 p.m. EST (0304 GMT on Monday). The 5,400-pound (2,450 kilograms) satellite reentered over the Bering Sea, with some components potentially surviving the super-hot temperatures of reentry.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jan 10)

SPACEX DRAGON CARGO CAPSULE HEADS HOME FROM SPACE STATION - A robotic SpaceX cargo craft began its journey home to Earth on Monday afternoon (Jan. 9). An uncrewed Dragon capsule undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) on schedule Monday at 5:05 p.m. EST (2205 GMT). At the time, the two spacecraft were flying at an altitude of 258 miles (415 kilometers), over a location southeast of Manila, the capital of the Philippines, NASA commentators said during a livestream of the event.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jan 10)

BLUEWALKER 3, AN ENORMOUS AND BRIGHT COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE, IS GENUINELY ALARMING ASTRONOMERS - The night sky is a shared wilderness. On a dark night, away from the city lights, you can see the stars in the same way as your ancestors did centuries ago. You can see the Milky Way and the constellations associated with stories of mythical hunters, sisters and journeys. But like any wilderness, the night sky can be polluted. Since Sputnik 1 in 1957, thousands of satellites and pieces of space junk have been launched into orbit.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jan 9)

FIRST ROCKET LAUNCH OF THE NEW YEAR LEAVES WENCHANG FOR SPACE - China launched a Long March 7A rocket from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in Hainan province on Monday morning, sending three satellites into space as part of its first space mission of 2023. The colossal 60.1-meter rocket blasted off at 6:00 am from the coastal launch center, and soon deployed the Shijian 23 and Shiyan 22A and 22B experimental satellites into orbit, according to a news release from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, the leading national space contractor.   More
(Source: China Daily - Jan 9)

DEFUNCT NASA SATELLITE TO REENTER - A defunct NASA satellite, launched nearly four decades ago, is predicted to reenter late Jan. 8 with a very small risk to people on the ground. NASA said Jan. 6 that the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite (ERBS) satellite, launched in 1984 and shut down in 2005, will reenter Jan. 8. At the time, NASA estimated a reentry at 6:40 p.m. Eastern, plus or minus 17 hours, based on data from the U.S. Space Force.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Jan 8)

CHINA TOPS US IN DEFENSE-RELATED SATELLITES ORBITED IN 2022: REPORT - While the US led the world in the total number of space launches in 2022 with China coming in second, a new report calls China the winner for the most defense-related payloads. “China is replacing Russia as the No. 2 space power,” Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Harvard and Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and author of the “Space Activities in 2022” report [PDF], told Breaking Defense Thursday. McDowell is also the author of the online newsletter “Jonathan’s Space Report,” which chronicles worldwide space launches.   More
(Source: https://breakingdefense.com/2023/01/china-tops-us-in-defense-related-satellites-orbited-in-2022-report/ - Jan 7)

VIRGIN ORBIT SET FOR HISTORIC SATELLITE LAUNCH FROM BRITAIN ON MONDAY - The first orbital satellite to set off for space from western Europe will be launched from Cornwall in southwest England on Monday. Virgin Orbit (VORB.O), part-owned by billionaire Richard Branson, who founded the Virgin Atlantic airline, plans to use a modified Boeing 747 with a rocket attached under its wing for the first time outside the company's base in the United States.   More
(Source: Reuters - Jan 7)

OLD NASA SATELLITE FALLING FROM SKY THIS WEEKEND, LOW THREAT - A 38-year-old retired NASA satellite is about to fall from the sky. NASA said Friday the chance of wreckage falling on anybody is “very low.” Most of the 5,400-pound (2,450-kilogram) satellite will burn up upon reentry, according to NASA. But some pieces are expected to survive. The space agency put the odds of injury from falling debris at about 1-in-9,400. The science satellite is expected to come down Sunday night, give or take 17 hours, according to the Defense Department.    More
(Source: AP News - Jan 7)

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