NASA UPDATES COVERAGE OF INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION CARGO SHIP DOCKING - In response to a winter storm currently affecting NASA personnel and broadcast capabilities in Texas, NASA is adjusting coverage of the arrival and docking of a Russian cargo spacecraft to the International Space Station. Updates previously planned for NASA Television will be available only on NASA’s space station Twitter and other social media accounts and the space station blog. No live broadcast or NASA Television coverage of the docking is planned.   More
(Source: NASA - Feb 17)

CAPE-3 CUBESAT LAUNCHED - The University of Louisiana (UL) at Lafayette student-built CAPE-3 satellite was launched on January 17. A 1-U CubeSat, CAPE-3 includes a “digipeater and experimental UHF adaptive radio.” An AX-25 telemetry downlink has been coordinated on 145.825 MHz and a 1k2 frequency-shift keying (FSK) downlink has been coordinated on 435.325 MHz, “which may burst to 100 kHz bandwidth,” according to the IARU Amateur Satellite Coordination page. CAPE-3 is the third cube satellite in the CAPE series.    More
(Source: ARRL - Feb 16)

SPACEX SUCCESSFULLY DEPLOYS 60 STARLINK SATELLITES, BUT LOSES BOOSTER ON DESCENT - SpaceX successfully launched 60 more Starlink internet satellites Monday night from Cape Canaveral, but lost the Falcon 9 rocket’s reusable first stage booster during a landing attempt on a drone ship parked in the Atlantic Ocean. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket blasted off at 10:59:37 p.m. EST Monday (0359:37 GMT Tuesday) from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, a day after weather kept the mission on Earth.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Feb 16)

SPACE IS GETTING VERY MESSY WITH SATELLITES AND ROCKETS. THIS COMPANY AIMS TO FIX IT. - Astroscale is a space sustainability company headquartered in Tokyo that is committed to creating solutions for removing potentially dangerous space junk. As space tourism missions to the ISS (International Space Station) become more prevalent, even more attention will have to be paid to orbital highways to ensure their maintenance and cleanliness. It’s more than a courtesy, it’s a matter of space safety. “If the space tourism industry does take off, more people having the chance to visit space will help to underscore the urgency of the danger posed by orbital debris,”...   More
(Source: Observer - Feb 16)

U.S. ARMY SATELLITE TO BRING IMAGERY DIRECTLY TO TROOPS ON THE GROUND - A Rocket Lab Electron launch vehicle scheduled to fly next month will carry a cubesat that will be used by the U.S. Army to assess the benefits of having dedicated imaging satellites for battlefield surveillance. The experimental spacecraft named Gunsmoke-J is one of seven satellites that will lift off from New Zealand in mid-March in Rocket Lab’s 19th Electron launch. The payloads will be deployed to orbits between 450 kilometers and 550 kilometers above Earth.    More
(Source: SpaceNews - Feb 16)

SPACEX DELAYS STARLINK SATELLITE FLEET LAUNCH DUE TO BAD WEATHER - SpaceX postponed the launch of its next batch of Starlink internet satellites late Sunday (Feb. 14) due to bad weather. A Falcon 9 rocket was scheduled to launch 60 new Starlink satellites into orbit from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 11:21 p.m. EST (0421 Feb. 15 GMT) before SpaceX made the call to stand down Sunday. The mission is now expected to launch a day later, on Monday night, SpaceX said in an update.    More
(Source: Space.com - Feb 16)

RUSSIA LAUNCHES CARGO SHIP HEADING FOR INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - Russia launched an unpiloted Progress cargo freighter Sunday from Kazakhstan, on course to deliver 2.7 tons of food, fuel, water, and supplies to the International Space Station before hauling away a no-longer-needed section of the outpost later this year to clear the way for a new laboratory module. The Progress MS-16 cargo ship blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan aboard a Soyuz-2.1a rocket at 11:45:06 p.m. EST Sunday (0445:06 GMT; 9:45:06 a.m. local time).   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Feb 15)

SPACEX GEARING UP FOR TWO MORE STARLINK MISSIONS WITHIN DAYS - Days after SpaceX opened preorders for Starlink internet service, two more Falcon 9 rockets are set to launch from Florida’s Space Coast as soon as Sunday night and Wednesday morning — weather permitting — to help push the network closer to commercial operations. The next two Starlink missions, expected to loft around 60 satellites each, will fly on Falcon 9 rockets from two different launch pads.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Feb 14)

NASA SLS COMPUTER DEVELOPMENT BRANCHING TO SUPPORT FIRST FLIGHT, FUTURE UPGRADES - Integrated testing of the vehicle’s computers for overall certification follows earlier rounds of element and subsystem computer testing all the way down to the individual avionics boxes. “There’s kind of two steps to it,” Mitchell explained. “Each avionics box has its own specifications that it has to meet: electrical specifications, functional specifications, and environmental specifications.    More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Feb 14)

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