CHINA’S SAR SATELLITE SURGE CONTINUES WITH NEW CONSTELLATION PLAN - A new Chinese constellation for disaster prevention, early warning and natural resource monitoring will bring yet more players into developing small synthetic-aperture radar satellites in the country. The “36 Tiangang” constellation project is being led by Tianjin Satcom Geohe Technologies Co., Ltd., with involvement from Satellite (Zhuhai) Aerospace Technology Co, Ltd., and facilities under the Harbin Institute of Technology and backed by the Ministry of Natural Resources.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Dec 8)

WHAT'S NEXT AFTER THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION? - The coming decade will see a time of transition when it comes to human spaceflight in low-Earth orbit. NASA’s Office of Inspector General sent out a tweet last week, releasing a report on the state of the International Space Station (ISS) and suggestions for the coming decade. Specifically, the audit highlights the need to end NASA's role in the ISS by 2030. The station is currently approved for operations through 2024, and an extension until 2030 seems likely.   More
(Source: Sky & Telescope - Dec 8)

ATLAS V ROCKET LAUNCHES NASA LASER COMMUNICATIONS PROTOTYPE AND SPACE FORCE EXPERIMENTS INTO ORBIT - An Atlas V rocket lit up the predawn sky over Florida early Tuesday (Dec. 7) to launch a novel NASA laser space communications satellite into orbit alongside a host of other payloads for the U.S. Space Force. The two-stage Atlas V rocket blasted off from Space Launch Complex 41 here at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:19 a.m. EST (1019 GMT), as part of a mission called STP-3 (Space Test Program-3). The successful liftoff came more than an hour after the mission's planned launch time due to high upper level winds, and after days of delays due to a fuel leak at the launch pad.   More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 7)

U.S. WAS NOT BLINDSIDED BY RUSSIA’S ANTI-SATELLITE TEST, SAY OFFICIALS - The U.S. military for years has watched Russia’s attempts to demonstrate it could destroy a satellite with a ground-based weapon, so the Nov. 15 missile test that blew up a satellite in orbit did not come as a complete shock, officials said Dec. 4 at the Reagan National Defense Forum. “These advances in capabilities are concerning, they are not a surprise,” Gen. David Thompson, vice chief of space operations of U.S. Space Force, said during a panel discussion at the forum held at the Ronald Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, California.    More
(Source: SpaceNews - Dec 7)

ULA SET TO LAUNCH ATLAS V ON LONG DURATION MISSION FOR SPACE FORCE - ULA (United Launch Alliance) is preparing for the 90th launch of an Atlas V rocket and their fifth and final mission of 2021. Launching from SLC-41 (Space Launch Complex 41) in Cape Canaveral, Florida, the STP-3 mission will loft two experimental satellites for the United States Space Force. The mission will also test several new technologies onboard the company’s Atlas V launch vehicle during the longest duration mission for an Atlas rocket to date. After a 24 hour delay due to a leak in the RP-1 ground storage system and then an additional day to verify the fuel’s sample integrity, liftoff is now scheduled for December 7 at 4:04 AM EST (9:04 UTC).   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Dec 7)

FUEL LEAK AT LAUNCH PAD DELAYS ATLAS 5 MISSION - United Launch Alliance delayed the planned launch of an Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral Sunday after discovering a kerosene fuel leak in the launch pad’s ground storage system. Officials have rescheduled launch with two U.S. military satellites for Tuesday morning. ULA announced the launch delay around 7 p.m. EST Saturday (0000 GMT Sunday), just prior to the start of the countdown for a planned liftoff before dawn Sunday.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 6)

ARIANESPACE LAUNCHES SOYUZ ST-B WITH NEW BATCH OF GALILEO SATELLITES - Arianespace has launched another two Galileo FOC (Full Operation Capability) global navigation satellites for Europe. Following a weather delay on Friday, the two satellites were launched by a Soyuz ST-B Fregat on the VS26 mission on Saturday. Liftoff occurred on December 4, 2021, at 21:19 Kourou time (Dec 5, 00:19 UTC; Dec 4, 7:19 pm EST). The launch of VS26 was the 150th Arianespace mission for European institutions and the 13th mission for Arianespace. This was the first Soyuz launch from the Guiana Space Center in 2021.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Dec 5)

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION SWERVES TO DODGE SPACE JUNK - The International Space Station (ISS) had to swerve away from a fragment of a U.S. launch vehicle on Friday, the head of Russia's space agency said, the latest in a series of incidents in which space debris have forced astronauts to respond. Calls to monitor and regulate space debris, or space junk, have grown since Russia conducted an anti-satellite missile test last month. This generated a debris field in orbit that U.S. officials said would pose a hazard to space activities for years.   More
(Source: Reuters - Dec 4)

RUSSIA WANTS TO SEND COSMONAUTS TO CHINA SPACE STATION - Roscosmos is looking at ways to send its cosmonauts to the Chinese space station, launching from sites in either Russia or French Guiana. During a press conference at the recently concluded Global Space Exploration Conference (GLEX) in St. Petersburg, Russia, on June 15, Dmitry Rogozin, director general of Roscosmos, revealed that Russia is in discussions with China about crewed flights to the Chinese space station.   More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 4)

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