ESA IS NO LONGER PLANNING TO SEND ASTRONAUTS TO CHINA’S TIANGONG SPACE STATION - ESA’s director general says the agency does not have the budgetary capacity nor the political intention to send its astronauts to China’s space station. “We are very busy supporting and ensuring our commitments and activities on the International Space Station where we have a number of international partners working together,” ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said in response to a question from SpaceNews during an annual press briefing in Paris on Monday. More (Source: SpaceNews - Jan 26)
U.S. TO TEST NUCLEAR-POWERED SPACECRAFT BY 2027 - The United States plans to test a spacecraft engine powered by nuclear fission by 2027 as part of a long-term NASA effort to demonstrate more efficient methods of propelling astronauts to Mars in the future, the space agency’s chief said on Tuesday. NASA will partner with the U.S. military's research and development agency, DARPA, to develop a nuclear thermal propulsion engine and launch it to space "as soon as 2027," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said during a conference in National Harbor, Maryland. More (Source: Reuters - Jan 25)
PERSISTENT COOPERATION ON THE SPACE STATION - Ever since Russia started an all-out invasion of Ukraine last February, the space community has wondered what it would mean for the future of the International Space Station. Russia is an essential partner on the station, but at the same time Russia and the West were rapidly unwinding cooperation elsewhere, from commercial launch to the Russian-European ExoMars mission. More (Source: The Space Review - Jan 25)
CLASSIFIED CHINESE SATELLITE RELEASES SMALL OBJECT IN ORBIT - A classified Chinese technology verification satellite that launched earlier this month has apparently released an object into orbit alongside it. China launched (opens in new tab) Shijian 23 on a Long March 7A rocket on Jan. 8, sending the satellite into an initial transfer orbit to reach its intended geostationary orbit (GEO), around 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth. More (Source: Space.com - Jan 25)
SATELLITE CONSTELLATIONS COULD INTERFERE WITH METEOROLOGICAL SPECTRUM - Satellite megaconstellations could pose a threat to the spectrum that meteorologists are eager to protect from radio frequency interference. At the American Meteorological Society annual meeting in Denver, meteorologists and spectrum experts expressed concern about proposals for SpaceX’s second-generation Starlink broadband constellations and acknowledged that other proposed megaconstellations could create interference as well. More (Source: SpaceNews - Jan 24)
ASTRONAUTS RING IN CHINESE NEW YEAR ON TIANGONG SPACE STATION - A Chinese astronaut crew decked their space station in red to celebrate the new year. The Shenzhou 15 crew carried lucky red signs and strung red banners around the Tiangong space station to welcome the Chinese New Year on Sunday (Jan. 22), which will be the Year of the Rabbit. "As we welcome the upcoming spring festival in China's space station, we wish you all peace and joy [and] getting what you wish for," commander Fei Junlong said in the video released by the China National Space Administration. More (Source: Space.com - Jan 24)
ASTRONAUTS COMPLETE SPACEWALK TO PREP FOR NEW ISS SOLAR ARRAYS - Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and NASA astronaut Nicole Mann suited up and floated outside the International Space Station Friday for a spacewalk to prepare the lab for arrival of another pair of new solar arrays later this year. The astronauts switched their spacesuits to internal battery power at 8:14 a.m. EST (1314 GMT) Friday to mark the official start of the spacewalk, the first of the year at the space station. They floated out of the Quest airlock to begin gathering tools and headed to the starboard, or right, side of the station’s power truss. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 23)
WATCH 2 ASTRONAUTS PERFORM 1ST SPACEWALK OF 2023 AT SPACE STATION TODAY - Two astronauts will conduct the first spacewalk of 2023 on Friday morning (Jan. 20), and you can watch the action live. NASA's Nicole Mann and Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency are scheduled to step outside the International Space Station (ISS) at 8:15 a.m. EST (1315 GMT) on Friday, kicking off a roughly 6.5-hour-long spacewalk. Watch it live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA, or directly via the agency (opens in new tab). Coverage will start at 7 a.m. EST (1200 GMT). More (Source: Space.com - Jan 22)
CHINA LAUNCHES 14 COMMERCIAL SATELLITES INTO ORBIT ATOP LONG MARCH 2D ROCKET - China has 14 new satellites in orbit following its fifth launch of 2023. A Long March 2D rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in northern China on Saturday (Jan. 14) at 10:14 p.m. EST (0314 GMT or 11:14 a.m. Beijing time on Jan. 15). Insulation tiles fell from the rocket as pink and purple exhaust propelled it above the frosty surrounding hills of Taiyuan. Aboard were 14 satellites for a range of customers. Six of the payloads were Jilin-1 optical and infrared remote sensing satellites for a commercial satellite firm spun off from an institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). More (Source: Space.com - Jan 21)
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