SPACEX WINS CONTRACT TO LAUNCH YAHSAT’S THURAYA 4-NGS SATELLITE - Yahsat has selected SpaceX to launch its next-generation Thuraya mobile connectivity satellite in 2023, the companies announced Sept. 8. A Falcon 9 will launch the Thuraya 4-NGS satellite, being built by Airbus Defence and Space for UAE-based Yahsat, in the second half of 2023. The companies did not disclose terms of the launch contract. More (Source: SpaceNews - Sep 9)
ROBOTIC ARMS, TINY HELPER SATELLITES: MILITARY EXPLORES HOW TO UPGRADE, REPAIR ASSETS IN SPACE - Satellites are notoriously hard to upgrade. Located anywhere from hundreds of miles to tens of thousands of miles above the Earth’s surface, the machines are difficult to reach physically. For years, engineers have designed satellites with the expectation that the hardware and software they put on orbit with a satellite is all they’d get. That incentivized exquisite satellite designs, built to last many years in space before finally being replaced by a satellite with upgraded technologies. More (Source: C4ISRNet - Sep 9)
THE ISS CREW IS GEARING UP FOR TWO SPACEWALKS - Two Expedition 65 cosmonauts will soon exit the International Space Station for the second spacewalk in less than week to continue configuring a Russian science module. Meanwhile, two astronauts are gearing up for another spacewalk, while the rest of the crew conducts space research and lab maintenance. Two Expedition 65 cosmonauts will soon exit the International Space Station for the second spacewalk in less than week to continue configuring a Russian science module. More (Source: Space Ref - Sep 9)
RUSSIAN FILM CREW DEEMED MEDICALLY FIT FOR OCT. 5 LAUNCH TO SPACE STATION - The folks who plan to film part of a Russian movie on the International Space Station next month have been deemed medically fit to fly. Director Klim Shipenko and actor Yulia Peresild got the thumbs-up after a meeting of the Chief Medical Commission at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center near Moscow, Russia's federal space agency Roscosmos announced last week. More (Source: Space.com - Sep 9)
GENESIS HAM SATELLITES AMONG PAYLOADS LOST IN LAUNCH FAILURE - The GENESIS-L and GENESIS-N ham radio satellites were among several carrying amateur radio payloads lost following the failure of the Firefly Alpha rocket during its first launch on September 2 from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. An anomaly occurred about 2 minutes into the mission, causing controllers to destroy the launcher in flight. The anomaly has yet to be explained. This was sad news for AMSAT-EA (Spain), as GENESIS-L and GENESIS-N were the first satellites they had built themselves. More (Source: ARRL - Sep 8)
WILL EARTH RUN OUT OF SPACE FOR SPACE JUNK? - Earlier this year, a five-millimeter hole was discovered in a robotic arm of the International Space Station. It was thought to have been caused by something no larger than a fleck of paint traveling through space ten times faster than the speed of a bullet. Larger pieces of debris can lead to mashups that spray out a shell of debris around our tiny planet. In 2009, a defunct Russian spacecraft slammed into a U.S.-based communications satellite, spewing a whopping 1,800 pieces of debris and many other shards too small to count. More (Source: New York Magazine - Sep 8)
JAPAN’S H3 ROCKET AWAITING FINAL ENGINE CERTIFICATION FOR FIRST FLIGHT - Japan’s third-generation liquid hydrogen-powered rocket, H3, is nearing closer to its first launch. The H3 rocket is co-developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), succeeding the H-II family, which provided satellite launches and International Space Station cargo resupply missions for two decades. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Sep 7)
SPACE FORCE DELAYS SELECTION OF WEATHER SATELLITES - The U.S. Space Force was expected this year to choose which vendors will build next-generation weather satellites for the Defense Department. But the competition is being extended until 2022 to give the teams more time to fine tune their designs, a program official said. The Space Enterprise Consortium — a Space Force organization that works with startups and commercial space companies — in June 2020 awarded $309 million in contracts to three teams... More (Source: SpaceNews - Sep 6)
CHINA LAUNCHES 4 SATELLITES ON 2 ROCKETS WITHIN HOURS OF EACH OTHER - China launched four new communications satellites this week in two launches from different launch sites, within hours of each other, as the country's intense launch activity continues. First up, a Long March 2C lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, northwest China, at 7:15 a.m. EDT (1115 GMT, 7:15 p.m. local time) on Aug. 24. More (Source: Space.com - Sep 5)
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