BOEING TARGETS A MARCH 25 LAUNCH FOR NEXT STARLINER TEST FLIGHT FOR NASA - Boeing is planning to launch its CST-100 Starliner astronaut taxi on a second test flight on March 25, company officials announced Monday (Jan. 25). A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch the uncrewed spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, after which Starliner will attempt to rendezvous and dock with the International Space Station (ISS) — something the spacecraft failed to do during its first test flight, called Orbital Flight Test-1 (OFT-1), in December 2019.    More
(Source: Space.com - Jan 27)

AXIOM SPACE NAMES FIRST PRIVATE CREW TO VISIT SPACE STATION - The crew of the first entirely-private orbital space mission will include the second oldest person to launch into space, the second Israeli in space, the 11th Canadian to fly into space and the first former NASA astronaut to return to the International Space Station, the company organizing the history-making flight has announced. Axiom Space on Tuesday (Jan. 26) revealed its clients for its first privately-funded and operated mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) flight is being arranged under a commercial agreement with NASA.   More
(Source: Scientific American - Jan 27)

SATELLITES BEAT BALLOONS IN RACE FOR FLYING INTERNET - Satellites - once the poor relation of broadband providers, considered the slowest, most expensive option and a real last resort - have become the hot favourite in the race to connect the world in places land-based internet does not reach. Ambitious alternatives have bitten the dust. Last week, Google scrapped its Loon company, set up nine years ago to beam the internet down to rural areas via a network of large balloons but unable to "build a long-term, sustainable business".   More
(Source: BBC News - Jan 26)

IODINE THRUSTER USED TO CHANGE THE ORBIT OF A SATELLITE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER - For the first time ever, a telecommunications satellite has used an iodine propellant to change its orbit around Earth. The small but potentially disruptive innovation could help to clear the skies of space junk, by enabling tiny satellites to self-destruct cheaply and easily at the end of their missions, by steering themselves into the atmosphere where they would burn up.   More
(Source: SciTechDaily - Jan 26)

VIRGIN ORBIT WILL LAUNCH FIRST DUTCH DEFENSE SATELLITE IN MISSION THAT WILL DEMO RAPID RESPONSE CAPABILITIES - Virgin Orbit isn’t slowing down after joining the exclusive club of small launch companies that have made it to orbit — the company just announced that it’s flying a payload on behalf of the Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNAF). This is the first-ever satellite being put up by the Dutch Ministry of Defense, and it’s a small satellite that will act as a test platform for a number of different communications experiments.    More
(Source: TechCrunch - Jan 26)

HAM RADIO’S SUITSAT RETURNS IN SHORT HORROR FILM - SuitSat loses its innocence in a new video short sci-fi thriller Decommissioned. “Inspired by true events,” the video short resurrects the 2006 spacesuit/satellite that transmitted messages on 2 meters as it circled Earth. The original SuitSat-1 project, conceived by an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) team, repurposed a decommissioned Russian Orlan spacesuit to function as a free-floating amateur radio transmit-only satellite.   More
(Source: ARRL - Jan 26)

SPACEX LAUNCHES 134 SATELLITES INTO ORBIT, MOST EVER - At the opening of its launch window, a Falcon 9 rocket took off from Florida on Sunday morning and made a flawless ascent into space. After dropping off the second stage in a parking orbit, the first stage returned to land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean. This was the 73rd time a Falcon 9 rocket first stage has been recovered. Meanwhile, the second stage began to circularize its orbit before it was scheduled to begin a satellite deployment sequence at 59 minutes into flight.    More
(Source: Ars Technica - Jan 24)

SPACEX FALCON 9 ROCKET WITH 143 SATELLITES GROUNDED BY WEATHER - Bad weather forced SpaceX to call off plans for launching a record 143 small satellites aboard a Falcon 9 rocket Saturday. The team was told to recycle for another attempt Sunday at 10 a.m. EST when forecasters predicted a 70% chance of acceptable conditions. The scores of satellites atop the Falcon 9 are the most ever scheduled for launch by a single rocket, eclipsing the previous 104-satellite mark set by India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle in February 2017.   More
(Source: CBS News - Jan 23)

SPACEX SURPASSES 1,000-SATELLITE MARK IN LATEST STARLINK LAUNCH - SpaceX launched its latest set of Starlink satellites Jan. 20, bringing the total number of spacecraft launched so far for that broadband constellation to more than 1,000. The Falcon 9 lifted off at 8:02 a.m. Eastern from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. The rocket’s upper stage deployed the payload of 60 Starlink satellites 65 minutes after liftoff.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Jan 23)

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