SONIC BOOM SHAKES SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AS SPACEX DRAGON RETURNS TO EARTH - Most of Southern California felt the shaking from a brief sonic boom created as SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft reentered Earth's atmosphere on Saturday night. "Dragon is on track to reenter Earth's atmosphere and splash down off the southern coast of California near Oceanside at ~10:44 p.m. PT," said a post on X from SpaceX.    More
(Source: CBS News - May 27)

FAA CLEARS SPACEX TO LAUNCH ITS 9TH STARSHIP SUPER HEAVY ROCKET, WHILE FLIGHT 8 MISHAP INVESTIGATION CONTINUES - A return to flight for SpaceX’s Starship program could be a just a holiday weekend away, after the Federal Aviation Administration gave the company the go ahead. In a statement published on Thursday, May 22, the regulator said that SpaceX “implemented all corrective actions” in response to the mishap seen during Flight 8 in March. Similarly to Flight 7 back in January, the Ship upper stage failed to complete its first burn following stage separation and broke up over The Turks and Caicos Islands.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 26)

SPACEX LAUNCHES 23 STARLINK SATELLITES ON MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND FALCON 9 FLIGHT - With hundreds of people looking on along the shores of Florida’s Space Coast, SpaceX launched its 45th Starlink launch of the year, which took off on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off on the Starlink 12-22 mission from Space Launch Complex 40 at 1:19 p.m. EDT (1719 UTC).   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 25)

SPACEX DRAGON UNDOCKS FROM STATION FOR SPLASHDOWN ON SUNDAY - At 12:05 p.m. EDT, the unpiloted SpaceX Dragon spacecraft undocked from the zenith, or space-facing, port of the International Space Station’s Harmony module following a command from ground controllers at SpaceX. After re-entering Earth’s atmosphere, the spacecraft will splash down at approximately 1:45 a.m. on Sunday, May 25, off the coast of California. NASA will post updates on the agency’s space station blog but will not stream the splashdown.    More
(Source: NASA - May 25)

NEW SPECIES OF SPACE-ADAPTED BACTERIA DISCOVERED ON CHINA'S TIANGONG SPACE STATION - Scientists have discovered a previously unknown strain of microbe after analyzing samples taken from China's Tiangong space station. The new microbe strain, officially named Niallia tiangongensis, was found in microbial samples collected from the surfaces of Tiangong during the Shenzhou 15 crewed mission, which returned to Earth in June 2023.   More
(Source: Space.com - May 23)

SATELLITE STARTUPS RACE TO ENHANCE WILDFIRE DETECTION AND RESPONSE - A new generation of Earth monitoring satellites is emerging to help responders detect and react to wildfires more quickly. Muon Space, which launched its FireSat protoflight mission in March, is developing a dedicated constellation of satellites to track wildfires globally in near real-time. The company is working with the nonprofit Earth Fire Alliance to build out the “FireSat” network in low Earth orbit (LEO). These satellites are equipped with multispectral electro-optical and infrared (EO/IR) sensors.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - May 22)

SPACEX LAUNCHES 23 STARLINK SATELLITES TO ORBIT ON BRAND-NEW FALCON 9 ROCKET AFTER ABORT - A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Tuesday (May 20) at 11:19 p.m. EDT (0319 GMT on May 21), carrying 23 of the company's Starlink broadband satellites to low Earth orbit (LEO). That was a day later than originally planned; SpaceX attempted to launch the mission on Monday night (May 19), but that try was aborted just before liftoff, for reasons that the company did not immediately explain.   More
(Source: Space.com - May 22)

ASTRONOMERS CAN CLASSIFY SATELLITES BY WATCHING HOW THEY BLOCK STARS - The satellite population in low Earth orbit (LEO) is not an open book. While data on many satellites is public, others are shrouded in secrecy, and information is incomplete for others. New research shows how observers can determine satellite shapes by watching them occult background stars. There are thousands of satellites in LEO, a region defined as below an altitude of 2,000 km (1,200 mi).    More
(Source: Phys.org - May 21)

CHINA LAUNCHES CLASSIFIED COMMS SATELLITE, CONDUCTS COMMERCIAL SEA LAUNCH - China has continued a recent uptick in launch activity with a Long March 7A mission to geosynchronous orbit and a sea launch of a Ceres-1 solid rocket. A Long March 7A rocket lifted off at 7:50 a.m. Eastern (1150 UTC), May 20, from Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan island, south China. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced launch success around an hour after liftoff, revealing the payload to be the ChinaSat 3B (Zhongxing-3B) communications satellite.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - May 21)

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