FIRST LAUNCH BY ABL SPACE SYSTEMS FAILS SHORTLY AFTER LIFTOFF - ABL Space Systems’ first RS1 rocket fell back on its launch pad at Kodiak Island, Alaska, shortly after liftoff Tuesday on the company’s first orbital launch attempt, destroying the rocket and damaging the ground facility, officials said. “After liftoff, RS1 experienced an anomaly and shut down prematurely,” ABL tweeted Tuesday. “This is not the outcome we were hoping for today, but one that we prepared for.”   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 12)

RUSSIA TO LAUNCH NEW SOYUZ CAPSULE TO REPLACE LEAKY SPACECRAFT ON SPACE STATION - Russia's space agency will launch an empty Soyuz capsule to the International Space Station February to replace a damaged spacecraft that is unsafe to return its crew of three to Earth, NASA and Russian space officials said Wednesday (Jan. 11).  The new MS-23 Soyuz spacecraft will launch on Feb. 20 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to replace the stricken Soyuz MS-22 capsule on the station, which suffered a coolant leak on Dec. 14 after being struck by a likely micrometeoroid, NASA and Russia's Roscosmos agency said.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jan 12)

SPACEX AND NASA TARGET CREW-6 ASTRONAUT LAUNCH IN MID-FEBRUARY - ASA's next crewed mission is approaching launch date. NASA and SpaceX are targeting mid-February for the launch of the next commercial crew mission to the International Space Station (ISS). A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will carry a crew of four to orbit aboard the Crew Dragon Endeavor, where the spacecraft will rendezvous and dock with the ISS for approximately six months of research and station maintenance.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jan 11)

FIRST VIRGIN ORBIT U.K. LAUNCH FAILS - Virgin Orbit’s first launch from the United Kingdom failed to reach orbit Jan. 9, dealing a high-profile setback to a company that has been struggling financially. Virgin Orbit’s Boeing 747 aircraft took off from Spaceport Cornwall in southwestern England at about 5:02 p.m. Eastern on the company’s “Start Me Up” mission, the sixth LauncherOne mission for the company but the first to fly from a location other than Mojave Air and Space Port.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Jan 10)

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)

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