A BOOM IN SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY IS REVOLUTIONIZING THE WAY WE SEE THE EARTH - When researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) published a study last year on its discovery of 11 new colonies of emperor penguins, they acknowledged an unusual source of assistance – students at Stirling High School in Scotland. Inspired by a David Attenborough program on the plight of the iconic bird, the teens and their teacher used satellite mapping imagery from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2, developed an algorithm, and found traces of unknown and unconfirmed colonies. They then passed on their findings to the BAS. More (Source: Landscape News - Apr 19)
RUSSIAN CAPSULE BRINGS HOME THREE SPACE FLIERS - Two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth early Saturday, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan amid preparations in Florida for launch of another station-bound crew Thursday aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. With Russian recovery forces and NASA support personnel standing by, the Soyuz spacecraft’s central crew module, descending under a single orange-and-white parachute, settled to an on target rocket-assisted touchdown at 12:55 a.m. EDT (10:55 a.m. local time) to close out a 185-day mission. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Apr 18)
BOEING’S STARLINER IS FURTHER DELAYED DUE TO ISS ‘TRAFFIC JAM’ CREATED BY SPACEX - SpaceX has already proved that it’s better at building human-carrying spacecraft than Boeing. Now its busy operation schedule is actually hampering Boeing’s effort to catch up. SpaceX has so many missions scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station in the coming months that there are no docking ports available for Boeing to conduct test flights with. SpaceX and Boeing are both contractors under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, tasked with building a reusable rocket-spacecraft system for transporting astronauts and payloads to the ISS. More (Source: Observer - Apr 17)
ST. VINCENT'S LA SOUFRIèRE VOLCANO ERUPTION SPOTTED FROM SPACE - New satellite imagery captures the relentless eruptions of the La Soufrière volcano on St. Vincent, which began on Friday (April 9). La Soufrière, which last erupted in 1979, is located on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent. After decades of inactivity, the volcano started rumbling late last year, when scientists noticed a new lava dome had formed, oozing lava in the volcano's summit crater. More (Source: Space.com - Apr 16)
NASA TO PROVIDE LIVE COVERAGE OF EXPEDITION 64 SPACE STATION CREW LANDING - Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA and two Roscosmos cosmonauts are scheduled to end their mission on the International Space Station Friday, April 16. Coverage of departure from the station and landing on Earth will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. Rubins, along with Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, will close the hatch to the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft at 6:10 p.m. EDT to begin the journey back to Earth. More (Source: SciTechDaily - Apr 15)
JUST IN: SPACE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY MOVING AHEAD WITH LOW-EARTH ORBIT SATELLITES - The Space Development Agency is moving forward with its fast-paced efforts to build a robust network of low-Earth orbit satellites, and the organization's leader is optimistic that funding for these initiatives will continue during the Biden administration. SDA was established in 2019 and tasked with coming up with a new approach to developing space-based capabilities that would be less expensive and more robust than legacy systems. More (Source: National Defense Magazine - Apr 15)
CHINA PREPARING TIANZHOU-2 CARGO MISSION TO FOLLOW UPCOMING SPACE STATION LAUNCH - A Long March 7 rocket has arrived at China’s coastal Wenchang spaceport to facilitate the Tianzhou-2 supply mission to a soon-to-launch space station module. The delivery was announced by the China Manned Space Engineering Office Monday and is part of intense preparations for construction of a modular space station in low Earth orbit. China is currently readying a Long March 5B rocket to launch Tianhe, aroughly 22-metric-ton spacecraft which will serve as the core space station module. That mission is expected to launch in late April. More (Source: SpaceNews - Apr 14)
CHINA LAUNCHES EXPERIMENTAL SHIYAN SATELLITE - China launched the third in a series of experimental Shiyan 6 satellites April 8 aboard a Long March 4B rocket, beginning a mission to test new space technologies, including a new super-black coating to absorb stray light and improve the sensitivity of on-board optics. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Apr 14)
FROM YURI GAGARIN'S LAUNCH TO TODAY, HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT HAS ALWAYS BEEN POLITICAL - When cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space, he also became an instant celebrity, a diplomatic icon of the Soviet Union around the world. Gagarin blasted off Earth 60 years ago on Monday (April 12), kicking off the era of human spaceflight. Rooted in the Cold War, human spaceflight was, at the time, inherently about the perception of power and prestige — and it remains so today, although the nuances of international relationships at play have changed just as much as the technological ones. More (Source: Space.com - Apr 13)
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