ROCKET LAB WAITING FOR ‘IDEAL’ WEATHER BEFORE LAUNCH AND RECOVERY ATTEMPT - Rocket Lab called off the planned launch and recovery of an Electron booster Friday, preferring to wait for better wind and cloud cover conditions a few days from now. The next opportunity to launch the mission from New Zealand is Monday. “We don’t usually give mother nature quite so much power over launch timing, but for our first helicopter catch attempt we want to line up the best possible conditions to give us the highest chance of a successful catch,” Rocket Lab said Friday. “In time, we’ll narrow those bounds.”   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 1)

SATELLITE PHOTOS SHOW MISSILES BEING LOADED ONTO RUSSIAN SUBMARINE. DOLPHIN PENS, TOO. - A sharp-eyed satellite spotted missiles being loaded onto a Russian submarine on Friday (April 29). A new photo captured by Maxar Technologies' WorldView-2 spacecraft shows what appear to be Kalibr missiles sitting next to a docked Kilo-class submarine in Sevastopol, an important Black Sea port in the Crimean Peninsula. "The imagery reveals the bow section of the Kilo submarine with extended trays to load the missiles, as well as two trucks positioned nearby that are used to transport the missiles to the quay for loading onto the submarine," Maxar representatives wrote in an emailed statement.   More
(Source: Space.com - May 1)

SPACEX LAUNCHES FALCON 9 BOOSTER FOR SECOND TIME IN THREE WEEKS - SpaceX continued throttling up its launch rate with another Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral Friday, completing a rapid recycle with a Falcon 9 first stage booster flying for the second time in 21 days. The mission Friday — designed Starlink 4-16 — was be the 151st launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since SpaceX debuted its workhorse vehicle June 4, 2010, and the 43rd Falcon 9 flight primarily dedicated to hauling Starlink internet relay stations into orbit. The launch was SpaceX’s 17th mission of the year, and the sixth Falcon 9 launch in April, SpaceX’s most ever in a single month.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 1)

ARABSAT ORDERS FIRST FULLY SOFTWARE-DEFINED SATELLITE - Saudi Arabian fleet operator Arabsat has ordered its first fully software-defined geostationary satellite to provide flexible coverage across the Middle East, Africa and parts of Europe. The company said April 29 it signed a contract for Arabsat 7A with Europe’s Thales Alenia Space, which will build the satellite based on its Space Inspire platform.    More
(Source: SpaceNews - Apr 30)

RUSSIA PUTS MILITARY SATELLITE INTO ORBIT - International Desk, Apr 30 (EFE).- Russia on Saturday successfully put into orbit a military satellite launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Archangelsk Region. The official Tass agency said the Russian Aerospace Forces launched the Angara-1.2 light rocket with a military satellite from the Plesetsk space center in the northwest of the country.   More
(Source: - Apr 30)

VYOMA IS THE LATEST PLAYER SEEKING TO PREVENT SATELLITE COLLISIONS WITH SPACE JUNK - As you might’ve heard, it’s getting a little crowded in space, between thousand-satellite constellations à la SpaceX’s Starlink and the millions of pieces of space junk accumulated from decades of launches. But it’s also getting a little crowded in the space-monitoring space, with a number of companies competing to create observation systems to help satellite and launch operators protect their assets from orbiting debris. One of the newest entrants to the field is Vyoma, a German company spun out of TUM, founded by Christoph Bamann, Luisa Buinhas and Stefan Frey. Vyoma’s goal is to track objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) using a constellation of observation satellites, then use machine learning to automate collision avoidance procedures for clients’ satellites.   More
(Source: TechCrunch - Apr 30)

ISS AND CHINA'S SPACE STATION PHOTOBOMB IMAGE OF 4 PLANETS ALIGNED IN THE SKY - The International Space Station and China's space station photobombed a four-planet line-up in the early morning sky for Italian astrophysicist Gianluca Masi. "While looking at the night sky is always amazing, sometimes the experience exceeds our expectations," Masi, who is the founder of the Virtual Telescope Project, said in a statement. After hopping into his car at 4 a.m. local time, he reached one of his favorite scenic spots in Rome.    More
(Source: Space.com - Apr 30)

PRIVATE ASTRONAUT JUST BACK FROM SPACE STATION DESCRIBES INTERACTIONS WITH RUSSIAN COSMONAUTS - It didn’t take long for the crew of the first all-private mission to the International Space Station to experience the unique dependency that US astronauts and Russian cosmonauts share in orbit. “We had one day when the toilet was down for a couple hours,” Larry Connor, the pilot of Axiom Space’s AX-1 mission, told CNN. “The Russians were very cordial, very accommodating. We operate as one team up there and they said, ‘Hey, come on over and use ours.”    More
(Source: CNN - Apr 30)

RUSSIAN SPACEWALKERS ‘FLEX’ SPACE STATION’S ROBOTIC ARM - Two Russian cosmonauts gave the International Space Station’s new robotic arm a bit of a workout on Thursday. Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Denis Matveev exited the space station at 10:58 a.m. ET to begin their spacewalk, which lasted for seven hours and 42 minutes. It ended at 6:40 p.m. ET. Artemyev was identifiable in the Russian Orlan spacesuit bearing red stripes, while Matveev wore a spacesuit with blue stripes. This was the second spacewalk for Matveev and the fifth for veteran spacewalker Artemyev.    More
(Source: CNN - Apr 29)

Previous Next