SPACEX LAUNCHES OVERNIGHT STARLINK FLIGHT AS IT UNVEILS NEW ‘STARGAZE’ SPACE SITUATIONAL AWARENESS SYSTEM - SpaceX completed its 13th and final Falcon 9 rocket launch of the month, which flew from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on in the predawn hours of Thursday morning. The Starlink 6-101 mission will add another 29 broadband internet satellites to SpaceX’s low Earth orbit megaconstellation. Prior to liftoff, the company had more than 9,500 satellites in orbit, according to stats maintained by Dr. Johnathan McDowell, an expert orbital tracker and astronomer.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 31)

ROCKET LAB LAUNCHES SOUTH KOREAN SATELLITE - A Rocket Lab Electron launched a South Korean imaging satellite Jan. 29 on the rocket’s second flight of the year. The Electron lifted off from the company’s Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand at 8:21 p.m. Eastern. The launch had been scheduled for 7:55 p.m. Eastern but was delayed when the countdown stopped about nine minutes before liftoff because of a technical issue that was later resolved.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Jan 31)

SPACEX LAUNCHES 11,000TH STARLINK SATELLITE TO DATE ON THURSDAY - SpaceX launched what is scheduled to be its penultimate Falcon 9 rocket of the month with a mid-morning flight from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Thursday. The Starlink 17-19 mission added another 25 satellites to its megaconstellation in low Earth orbit. Among the satellites was the 11,000th Starlink satellite launched by the company since its first batch of production satellites were flown in May 2019.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 30)

DECLASSIFYING JUMPSEAT: AN AMERICAN PIONEER IN SPACE - The director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) recently declassified the existence of JUMPSEAT: the United States’ first-generation, highly elliptical orbit (HEO) signals-collection satellite. Launched from 1971 to 1987 under mission numbers 7701 to 7708, JUMPSEAT was the product of the United States Air Force’s (USAF) program at the NRO. Developed under a program called “Project EARPOP,” JUMPSEAT offered the U.S. a way of collecting intelligence during unprecedented geopolitical change and Cold War tensions that lasted until the early 1990s.    More
(Source: NRO.gov - Jan 30)

AMAZON LEO SATELLITES EXCEED BRIGHTNESS LIMITS, STUDY FINDS - Seeing a satellite zip across the night sky can be a fascinating sight. However, what may be spectacular for people on the ground is becoming a major problem for astronomers. A new study published on the arXiv preprint server has found that satellites from Amazon's mega Leo constellation (originally known as Project Kuiper) are bright enough to disrupt astronomical research.   More
(Source: Phys.org - Jan 29)

SPACEX LAUNCHES GPS 3 SATELLITE FOLLOWING SWITCH FROM ULA VULCAN ROCKET - The U.S. Space Force sent its ninth third-generation Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite into medium Earth orbit on Tuesday night. The satellite rode to space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket after the government moved the spacecraft from a United Launch Alliance Vulcan rocket. The mission, named GPS 3-9, saw the GPS 3 Space Vehicle 09 (SV09) payload deploy from the rocket’s upper stage nearly 1.5 hours after liftoff. This latest positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) satellite is equipped with what the Space Force calls M-Code technology, which it calls critical to “provide the warfighter with a significantly more accurate and jam-resistant capability.”   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 29)

NASA AND SPACEX MOVE UP LAUNCH OF CREW-12 ASTRONAUTS TO FEB. 11 AS RELIEF CREW AFTER ISS MEDICAL EVACUATION - NASA has announced an earlier-than-expected target date to launch the next astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS). The agency is now targeting Feb. 11 for liftoff of the SpaceX Crew-12 mission, which will fly four astronauts to join the skeleton crew presently operating the orbital lab. A scant three are currently covering the maintenance and science investigations aboard the ISS, left behind on Jan. 14 by the early departure of Crew-11 on the station's first-ever medical evacuation.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jan 29)

EUROPE’S NEXT-GENERATION WEATHER SATELLITE SENDS BACK FIRST IMAGES - The first images from the Meteosat Third Generation-Sounder satellite have been shared at the European Space Conference in Brussels, showing how the mission will provide data on temperature and humidity, for more accurate weather forecasting over Europe and northern Africa. The images from Meteosat Third Generation-Sounder (MTG-S) show a full-disc image of Earth as seen from geostationary orbit, about 36 000 km above Earth’s surface. These images were captured on 15 November 2025 by the satellite’s Infrared Sounder instrument.   More
(Source: European Space Agency - Jan 28)

WATCH SPACEX LAUNCH ADVANCED GPS SATELLITE FOR US SPACE FORCE ON JAN. 27 AFTER DELAY - SpaceX will launch an advanced GPS satellite for the U.S. Space Force from Florida on Tuesday night (Jan. 27), and you can watch the action live. A Falcon 9 rocket carrying the GPS III-SV09 spacecraft is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Tuesday, during a 15-minute window that opens at 11:38 p.m. EST (0438 GMT on Jan. 28). SpaceX and the Space Force had been targeting Monday night (Jan. 26), but bad weather pushed things back a day.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jan 27)

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