SEE LATEST CONFIGURATION OF CHINA'S TIANGONG SPACE STATION IN STUNNING NEW VIDEO - China's space station is a busy place these days. New footage released by China's human spaceflight agency shows the Tiangong space station in its new configuration following a series of arrivals to and departures from the orbital outpost. The Tianzhou 5 cargo spacecraft undocked from Tiangong on May 5, freeing up a docking port for the next supply mission. The Tianzhou 6 cargo spacecraft — packed with supplies, scientific experiments and propellant — then launched for Tiangong on May 11. The mission was a precursor to the arrival of the station's next inhabitants. More (Source: Space.com - Jun 18)
CHINA LAUNCHES NATIONAL-RECORD 41 SATELLITES ON SINGLE ROCKET - China just broke its own national record for satellites launched by a single rocket. A Long March 2D rocket lifted off from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China Thursday (June 15) at 1:30 a.m. EDT (0530 GMT, or 13:30 local time). Insulation tiles fell away from the rocket as it rose into blue skies above the hills surrounding Taiyuan, and shock diamonds were visible in its purple exhaust plume. A total of 41 small satellites were released into orbit. These were the Jilin-1 GF06A0 satellites 1-30, Jilin-1GF03D 19-26, HEGS-1 and Jilin-1 PT02A01/02 for Chinese commercial remote sensing satellite company Changguang Satellite (CGST). More (Source: Space.com - Jun 18)
PLD SPACE SET TO LAUNCH SPAIN’S FIRST PRIVATE ROCKET INTO SPACE - PLD Space aimed to launch Spain’s first privately developed rocket into space, the Miura 1, on May 31 but was later scrubbed due to upper-level winds. After several delays due to weather, the company finally went ahead another attempt on Saturday, June 17. The launch window opened at 2:00AM CEST (00:00 UTC) running for eight hours until 10:00 AM CEST (08:00 UTC). More (Source: NASASpaceFlight - Jun 17)
TECHNICAL PROBLEM POSTPONES FINAL ARIANE 5 LAUNCH - Arianespace has postponed the final launch of the Ariane 5, potentially for several weeks, after discovering a potential problem with pyrotechnical systems on the rocket. Arianespace announced June 15 it was postponing the 117th and final launch of the Ariane 5, which had been scheduled for June 16 from Kourou, French Guiana. A brief statement, made shortly after rollout of the rocket from its final assembly building to the launch pad was canceled, said only that there was “a risk to the redundancy of a critical function” on the rocket. More (Source: SpaceNews - Jun 17)
JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE GETS SATELLITE SIDEKICK TO AID SEARCH FOR HABITABLE PLANETS - A deep-space telescope's search for potentially habitable exoplanets will get a stellar boost from a small satellite. The James Webb Space Telescope's (JWST or Webb) far-reaching exoplanet search will receive some help from a much smaller satellite, which is optimized to look at star activity. The $8.5 million cubesat, selected by NASA, is called Monitoring Activity from Nearby Stars with UV Imaging and Spectroscopy, or MANTIS. More (Source: Space.com - Jun 17)
SPACE SYSTEMS COMMAND SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHES THREE SATELLITES FOR U.S. SPACE FORCE ON SPACEX TRANSPORTER-8 MISSION - Space Systems Command (SSC)’s Space Domain Awareness & Combat Power (SDA&CP) and Spaceflight Inc. successfully launched three Department of Defense (DoD) Research and Development (R&D) satellites, built by Blue Canyon Technologies, for the U.S. Space Force on a Space-X Falcon-9 rocket lifted off at 2:35 p.m. PT/5:35 p.m. ET from Space Launch Complex (SLC)-4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. More (Source: SpaceRef - Jun 16)
TOMORROW.IO RAISES $87 MILLION FOR WEATHER SATELLITE CONSTELLATION - omorrow.io raised $87 million in a Series E funding round to support its campaign to gather weather and climate data. Boston-based Tomorrow.io announced the news June 14 after launching its second satellite, R-2, on the SpaceX Transporter-8 rideshare flight. Tomorrow.io’s $87M Series E round was led by Activate Capital. Joining the round were RTX Ventures, Seraphim Space and Chemonics. Existing Tomorrow.io investors, SquarePeg Capital, Canaan, ClearVision, JetBlue Ventures and Pitango, also provided funding. More (Source: SpaceNews - Jun 16)
WORLD’S TINIEST SATELLITE ‘POCKETQUBE ISTANBUL’ BY SATELLITE TECH START-UP HELLO SPACE, LAUNCHED INTO SPACE WITH SPACEX - Hello Space, a promising satellite tech start-up, aims to set a pocketqube constellation in space to revolutionize IoT technologies, by offering reliable, consistent IoT data services to businesses, from even the most remote locations in the world. World’s tiniest satellite, called ‘pocketqube’s offers cutting-edge satellite tech, with 5cm x 5cm x 5cm in size. Hello Space achieved unprecedented speed by completion of software and hardware production followed by space launch in under 13 months. More (Source: Yahoo Finance - Jun 15)
PENTAGON GEARING UP TO LAUNCH 1ST EXPERIMENTAL NAVIGATION SATELLITE IN 50 YEARS - The Pentagon is preparing to launch a test craft that could improve the nation's satellite-navigation capabilities. The spacecraft, called Navigation Technology Satellite-3 (NTS-3), will be the first U.S. experimental navigation satellite to take flight since NTS-1 and NTS-2 launched in the 1970s. NTS-3, which was developed by L3Harris Technologies, recently completed testing at the Benefield Anechoic Facility (BAF) at Edwards Air Force Base in California. More (Source: Space.com - Jun 15)
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