AIR FORCE NAVIGATION SATELLITE EXPERIMENT APPLYING LESSONS FROM GPS - The U.S. Air Force Navigation Technology Satellite-3 — a flight experiment seven years in the making — is undergoing final tests ahead of a projected 2024 launch. A lot is riding on this project. The $250 million experiment led by the Air Force Research Laboratory aims to deliver novel technologies for space-based positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT). It’s also seen as a test case for the management of the so-called PNT enterprise, which includes the satellites, the ground system and the receivers that allow users to talk to the satellites. More (Source: SpaceNews - Apr 29)
WATCH LIVE: FIRST ARAB SPACEWALKER HEADS OUTSIDE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - Veteran NASA astronaut Steve Bowen and Emirati astronaut Sultan Alneyadi suited up and floated outside the International Space Station Friday for a spacewalk to prepare the outpost for new solar arrays and retrieve a disabled S-band antenna for eventual return to Earth. Alneyadi became the first Arab astronaut to perform a spacewalk. The astronauts switched their NASA spacesuits to internal battery power at 9:11 a.m. EDT (1511 UTC) to mark the official start of the spacewalk, which was expected to last about six-and-a-half hours. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Apr 29)
A RUSSIAN 'INSPECTOR' SATELLITE APPEARS TO BE CHASING A SECRET US MILITARY SATELLITE IN A GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE - A mysterious Russian satellite and a confidential US military satellite appear to be engaged in a cat-and-mouse chase through space. The Russian spacecraft, called Kosmos-2558, was launched into the same orbital plane as the US satellite, called USA-326, in August 2022 and has regularly passed close to the American spacecraft ever since. More (Source: Business Insider - Apr 28)
VIASAT-3 AMERICAS HOPING FOR FRIDAY RIDE ON EXPENDABLE FALCON HEAVY LAUNCH - Falcon Heavy’s second launch of 2023 is being prepared for liftoff with the ViaSat-3 Americas satellite as the main payload, plus the much smaller Arcturus and G-Space 1 rideshare satellites. Liftoff was scheduled for Wednesday, April 26, at 7:29 PM EDT (23:29 UTC) at the start of a 57-minute window. However, SpaceX has since delayed it to Friday following bad weather during Thursday’s window. The launch will now attempt to take place from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, as it is currently the only Falcon Heavy-capable launch pad. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Apr 28)
WOW! MAXAR SATELLITE CAPTURES UP-CLOSE LOOK AT NASA'S LANDSAT 8 SPACECRAFT IN ORBIT - Here's a rare close-up look at an active satellite in orbit. Maxar Technologies' Worldview-3 satellite has delivered images of NASA's Landsat 8 spacecraft from ranges of between 56 miles (91.4 kilometers) and 80 miles (129.9 km), showing clear details of the powerful Earth-observation satellite. A still image reveals the 29.5-by-1.3 foot (9 by 0.4 meters) solar array powering Landsat 8, as well as distinct science payloads on the satellite's 9.8-foot-long (3 m) bus, or main body. More (Source: Space.com - Apr 28)
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)
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