SPACEX LAUNCHES 46 STARLINK SATELLITES ON APRIL 27 AFTER DELAY - SpaceX launched another big batch of its Starlink internet satellites and landed the returning rocket at sea on Thursday morning (April 27). A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 46 Starlink spacecraft lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base Thursday at 9:40 a.m. EDT (1340 GMT; 6:40 a.m. local California time) after an abort over rocket landing concerns on April 26. The mission was also pushed back from April 25. The launch took place flawlessly amid heavy fog conditions at Vandenberg. More (Source: Space.com - Apr 27)
NASA UPDATES COVERAGE OF ROSCOSMOS SPACEWALKS AT SPACE STATION - NASA will provide live coverage as two Roscosmos cosmonauts conduct two spacewalks in May outside the International Space Station to relocate hardware from the Rassvet module to the new Nauka multipurpose laboratory module. During the spacewalks, Expedition 69 cosmonauts Sergey Prokopyev and Dmitri Petelin will venture outside the Poisk airlock Wednesday, May 3 and Friday, May 12, to help in transfer and install of an experiment airlock to Nauka and deploy a radiator to provide module cooling. More (Source: NASA - Apr 27)
WATCH SPACEX LAUNCH 46 STARLINK SATELLITES ON APRIL 27 AFTER DELAY - SpaceX plans to launch another big batch of its Starlink internet satellites and land the returning rocket at sea on Thursday morning (April 27), and you can watch the action live. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying 46 Starlink spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base Thursday at 9:40 a.m. EDT (1340 GMT; 6:40 a.m. local California time) after an abort over rocket landing concerns on April 26. The mission was also pushed back from April 25. More (Source: Space.com - Apr 27)
REPORT: SPACE FORCE COULD BENEFIT FROM COMMERCIAL DATA TO MONITOR SATELLITES AND DEBRIS - U.S. military space watchers and space traffic managers face a daunting workload due to increasing congestion and threats in orbit. The Space Force is investing in new sensors and technologies to better characterize objects in orbit, but is not taking full advantage of commercially available data and services, says a new report by the Government Accountability Office. GAO in a congressionally mandated report released April 24 said DoD lacks a consistent process to evaluate commercial data and tools for space situational awareness. More (Source: SpaceNews - Apr 26)
CHINA TESTS HEAT-TO-ELECTRICAL POWER CONVERTER ON TIANGONG SPACE STATION - Astronauts aboard China's Tiangong space station have been testing out ways to convert heat into electrical power. A Stirling power converter developed by the Lanzhou Institute of Physics of China Academy of Space Technology was installed in a specialized equipment cabinet for basic tests in the Mengtian lab module of Tiangong, according to CGTN (opens in new tab). More (Source: Space.com - Apr 26)
NASA CHIEF SEES RUSSIANS AND AMERICANS TOGETHER ON SPACE STATION THROUGH 2030 - NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Tuesday condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but said in Ottawa that he expected Russians and Americans to work together on the International Space Station (ISS) until it is decommissioned. American-Russian space cooperation was put in doubt after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. More (Source: Reuters - Apr 26)
SPACEX LAUNCHES WORLD'S 1ST 5G SATELLITE TO BRING GLOBAL CONNECTIVITY TO INTERNET OF THINGS - SpaceX has launched what is reportedly the first satellite in low Earth orbit (LEO) to operate on the 5G cellular standard. Known as "The GroundBreaker," the relatively small, 22-pound (10-kilogram) orbital data relay, designated Sateliot_0, is the first of a constellation of over 250 spacecraft designed to communicate with terrestrial cell towers and fill gaps in data networks worldwide. More (Source: Space.com - Apr 25)
ASTRONAUTS GEARING UP FOR FRIDAY SPACEWALK - Two astronauts on the Expedition 69 crew are gearing up for a spacewalk at the end of the week. Meanwhile, two cosmonauts are standing down after their spacewalk planned for Tuesday was postponed. Flight Engineers Stephen Bowen of NASA and Sultan Alneyadi of UAE (United Arab Emirates) are preparing for a spacewalk scheduled for 9:15 a.m. EDT on Friday. The duo in their Extravehicular Mobility Units, or spacesuits, will spend about six-and-a-half hours in the vacuum of space continuing to upgrade the orbital outpost’s power generation system. International Space Station managers will appear on NASA TV, on the agency’s app and website, at 2 p.m. today to discuss Friday’s spacewalk. More (Source: NASA - Apr 25)
FALCON HEAVY DELAY AFFECTS SPACE STATION MANIFEST - A delayed launch of commercial satellites on a Falcon Heavy could upend the schedule of flights to the International Space Station, including a private astronaut mission that was scheduled for early May. During an April 24 briefing about an upcoming ISS spacewalk, a NASA official said the Ax-2 mission to the station by Axiom Space, which had been scheduled for as soon as May 8, would likely be pushed back. More (Source: SpaceNews - Apr 25)
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