RUSSIA TO HALT COOPERATION OVER INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - Russia says it will end cooperation with western countries over the International Space Station until sanctions are lifted. Russia’s space director said on Saturday that the restoration of normal ties between partners at the ISS and other joint space projects would be possible only once western sanctions against Moscow were lifted.   More
(Source: The Guardian - Apr 3)

ROCKET LAB LAUNCHES 2 BLACKSKY EARTH-OBSERVING SATELLITES INTO ORBIT - Rocket Lab just sent two more private Earth-observation satellites skyward. A Rocket Lab Electron launcher lifted off Saturday (April 2) at 8:41a.m. EST (1241 GMT) from the company's Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand's Mahia Pensula. The local time was 1:10 a.m. Sunday morning at the launch site. The two-stage Electron rocket carried two spacecraft for the Virginia company BlackSky. They were successfully deployed about 40 minutes after liftoff.   More
(Source: Space.com - Apr 3)

FORTY PAYLOADS RIDE INTO ORBIT ON SPACEX FALCON 9 ROCKET - SpaceX launched a German environmental mapping satellite and 39 co-passenger spacecraft Friday, dodging thunderstorms near Cape Canaveral that threatened to keep the Falcon 9 rocket on the ground. The rideshare mission, named Transporter 4, lifted off at 12:24:17 p.m. EDT (1624:17 GMT) from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Forecasters initially predicted just a 30% chance weather would be acceptable for launch Friday, but SpaceX proceeded with the countdown, and clouds lifted just enough to make it safe for the Falcon 9 to blast off from Florida’s Space Coast.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Apr 2)

CHINESE SPACECRAFT REENTERS ATMOSPHERE AHEAD OF NEW SPACE STATION MISSIONS - China deorbited the Tianzhou-2 cargo spacecraft Thursday after testing on-orbit docking, refueling and module transposition for the Chinese space station. Tianzhou-2 reentered the atmosphere over the South Pacific at 6:40 a.m. Eastern March 31, China’s human spaceflight agency, CMSA, announced minutes after the event. The area of the ocean is frequently used as a “spacecraft cemetery.” The spacecraft separated from the forward docking port of Tianhe, the core module of China’s space station, at 3:59 a.m. Eastern March 27.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Apr 1)

NASA SAYS RUSSIA IS STILL ‘MOVING TOWARD’ EXTENDING THE SPACE STATION THROUGH 2030 - Despite the United States and Russia’s deteriorating relationship here on Earth, Russia is still considering extending its participation on the International Space Station through 2030, according to NASA. However, it could be a few months before there is a solid update on Russia’s official stance. NASA and Russia’s state space corporation, Roscosmos, have been the two largest partners on the International Space Station for the last three decades. The two organizations have agreed to work together on the ISS through 2024, but at the end of last year, the Biden administration announced its intentions to extend the space station program through 2030. Russia has not formally agreed to the extension yet.   More
(Source: The Verge - Apr 1)

BLUE ORIGIN FLIES FOURTH SUBORBITAL CREW MISSION - Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital launcher lofted six passengers, including the rocket’s chief designer, on an up-and-down flight to the edge of space Thursday. After a series of countdown holds, the commercial space company launched the single-stage New Shepard rocket from West Texas at 9:58 a.m. EDT (1358 GMT; 8:58 a.m. CDT). The mission lasted a little more than 10 minutes from liftoff until touchdown of Blue Origin’s crew capsule, which returned to the company’s sprawling test facility for landing just a couple of miles from the launch pad.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Apr 1)

USING TINY SATELLITES TO MONITOR HARMFUL GASES FROM SPACE - Steve Love is a physicist and remote sensing instrumentation scientist in the Space and Remote Sensing group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. This effort was made possible through an award from NASA's Earth Science Technology Office's In-Space Validation of Earth Science Technology (InVEST) program, and by the U.S. Department of Energy through its Laboratory Directed Research and Development program at Los Alamos. Love contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.   More
(Source: Space.com - Apr 1)

ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH SATELLITES LAUNCHED BY CHANG ZHENG 11 - China successfully launched three Tianping-2 satellites from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Wednesday morning using the Chang Zheng 11 rocket. The information surrounding the payload of Tianping-2 satellites is not comprehensive, however, they are built by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC). Three individual satellites, Tianping-2 A, Tianping-2 B, and Tianping-2 C, were successfully inserted into Earth orbit and will perform atmospheric research, data collection, forecasting, and modeling.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlignt.com - Mar 31)

SOYUZ RETURNS ASTRONAUT AND COSMONAUTS FROM SPACE STATION - A Soyuz spacecraft carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts landed in Kazakhstan March 30, an ordinary end of a mission in extraordinary times. The Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft landed in the designated landing zone in Kazakhstan at 7:28 a.m. Eastern, four hours after undocking from the International Space Station. The landing appeared to go as planned, with the Soyuz commander, Anton Shkaplerov, saying “we’re feeling great” as the Soyuz descended. The Soyuz returned Shkaplerov, who flew to the station on that Soyuz spacecraft nearly six months ago, as well as Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Mar 31)

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