CYGNUS CARGO CRAFT FIRES ENGINE FOR LIMITED STATION REBOOST - On Saturday, June 25, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus completed its first limited reboost of the International Space Station. Cygnus’ gimbaled delta velocity engine was used to adjust the space station’s orbit through a reboost of the altitude of the space station. The maneuver lasted 5 minutes, 1 second and raised the station’s altitude 1/10 of a mile at apogee and 5/10 of a mile at perigee. This Cygnus mission is the first to feature this enhanced capability as a standard service for NASA, following a test of the maneuver which was performed in 2018 during Cygnus’s ninth resupply mission.   More
(Source: NASA - Jun 26)

CHINA COMPLETES SECOND LAUNCH THIS WEEK WITH YAOGAN 35-2 - A second launch out of China this week lifted off at 02:22 UTC from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center with three satellites of the Yaogan family aboard a Chang Zheng 2D. The satellites, called Yaogan 35 Group 2, are possibly related to another triplet of payloads that launched in November 2021 from the same spaceport on the same rocket.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Jun 25)

KUAIZHOU-1A RETURNS TO FLIGHT WITH A MYSTERIOUS PAYLOAD - This morning at 02:20 UTC, Kuaizhou-1A successfully returned to flight with the Tianxing-1 mission. The launch was conducted from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China. This mission comes after the GeeSAT-1A&1B mission, which launched in December 2021 on the same rocket configuration and failed. The payload went to a 275 x 292 km orbit, with an inclination of 96.8 degrees. The launch was confirmed to be a success by Chinese state media. The payload is called Tianxing-1 and is referred to as a test satellite.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Jun 25)

WILD SOLAR WEATHER IS CAUSING SATELLITES TO PLUMMET FROM ORBIT. IT'S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE. - In late 2021, operators of the European Space Agency's (ESA) Swarm constellation noticed something worrying: The satellites, which measure the magnetic field around Earth, started sinking toward the atmosphere at an unusually fast rate — up to 10 times faster than before. The change coincided with the onset of the new solar cycle, and experts think it might be the beginning of some difficult years for spacecraft orbiting our planet.    More
(Source: Space.com - Jun 24)

LAUNCH OF NASA'S CAPSTONE CUBESAT MOON MISSION DELAYED TO JUNE 27 - The launch of NASA's CAPSTONE moon mission has been delayed at least two additional days, to no earlier than Monday (June 27). The microwave oven-sized CAPSTONE will head toward the moon atop a Rocket Lab Electron vehicle, which will lift off from the company's New Zealand launch site. NASA and Rocket Lab had been eyeing Saturday (June 25) for the launch, but it has been pushed back to allow for additional checks on the Electron, NASA officials said in a brief update last night (opens in new tab) (June 22).   More
(Source: Space.com - Jun 24)

ARIANE 5 ROCKET LAUNCHES 2 COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES TO ORBIT FROM SOUTH AMERICA - A European heavy-lift rocket launched two communications satellites to orbit from South America on Wednesday evening (June 22). An Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket lifted off from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana on Wednesday at 5:50 p.m. EDT (2150 GMT). That was 47 minutes into the 100-minute launch window, time that France-based Arianespace took to perform some extra checks on the rocket.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jun 23)

NASA ATTEMPT TO BOOST SPACE STATION CUTS OFF UNEXPECTEDLY - The International Space Station sometimes has to shift its path to stay in the right orbit or to avoid debris (like it did last week). Usually, the ISS crew calls on Russian equipment to provide the thrust for the adjustments, but NASA tried to use a Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo craft in a "reboost" test on Monday. It didn't go as planned.   More
(Source: CNET - Jun 22)

KARI REACHES ORBIT ON SECOND TEST FLIGHT OF DOMESTIC NURI ROCKET - The Korean Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) has conducted its second launch of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle (KSLV)-II rocket, also known as Nuri. This was Nuri’s return to flight after nearly reaching orbit on its previous mission. The rocket lifted off from Launch Complex-2 (LC-2) at the Naro Space Center on June 21 at 16:00 Korea Time (07:00 UTC). This launch was Nuri’s second demonstration flight and KARI’s fifth orbital launch attempt overall. On this flight, Nuri carried a 1.2 metric ton mass simulator, the 162.5 kg Performance Verification Satellite (PVSAT), four CubeSats, and a dummy CubeSat successfully to orbit.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Jun 22)

SOUTH KOREAN ROCKET’S SECOND LAUNCH RESCHEDULED FOR JUNE 21 - The second launch of South Korea’s first domestically built rocket is set for June 21, a delay of a week due to strong winds and a technical glitch. “We convened a meeting of the launch management committee and decided to pursue the second launch on June 21,” Kwon Hyun-joon, a senior science ministry official, said June 17 in a live-streamed media briefing. Kwon said the kerosene and liquid oxygen-fueled three-stage rocket KSLV-2 was lying horizontally in a hangar at the Naro Space Center, after a malfunctioning sensor in the first-stage booster was replaced with a new one.    More
(Source: SpaceNews - Jun 21)

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