A HUGE CHINESE ROCKET WILL CRASH TO EARTH THIS WEEKEND JUST AS CHINA’S NEW SPACE STATION BECOMES VISIBLE IN THE NIGHT SKY - China’s new space station can now be seen in the night sky from Earth. Although it’s the tumbling booster rocket from its launch that grabbed all the headlines—and is set to crash on Sunday, May 9—what’s been missed is that “Tianhe-1” is safely in orbit and now visible from Earth at night. Set to become a fixture of the night sky, this first module of China’s new space station has already been seen from Middle America this past week, reports SpaceWeather.com. More (Source: Forbes - May 8)
SPACE JUNK FROM 2007 CHINA SATELLITE ATTACK STILL POSES RISK - Space debris from a Chinese experiment 14 years ago in which Beijing destroyed one of its own satellites continues to orbit Earth, a senior U.S. military commander has told Congress. "In 2007, we saw the Chinese conduct a very irresponsible test. We continue to have about 3,000 pieces of debris on orbit that we continue to track," Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, the commander of Space Operations Command at the U.S. Space Force said in testimony to subcommittees of the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. "That's about 10% of the total amount of objects that we track on orbit." More (Source: Nikkei Asia - May 7)
ROCKET DEBRIS FROM CHINA'S SPACE STATION LAUNCH IS HURTLING BACK TO EARTH — AND SCIENTISTS AREN'T SURE WHERE IT WILL LAND - A huge piece of space junk is about to make an uncontrolled re-entry back into Earth's atmosphere, threatening to drop debris on a number of cities around the world in the coming days. It's leftover from China's first module for its new Tianhe space station — and no one knows where it will land. The 46,000-pound Chinese rocket Long March-5B recently launched the first module for the country's new space station into orbit. After the core separated from the rest of the rocket, it should have followed a predetermined flight path into the ocean. More (Source: CBS News - May 7)
NASA'S NEW FLEET OF SATELLITES WILL OFFER INSIGHTS INTO THE WILD CARDS OF CLIMATE CHANGE - NASA is about to announce its next generation of Earth-observing satellites. As soon as this month, it will lay out preliminary plans for a multibillion-dollar set of missions that will launch later this decade. This “Earth system observatory,” as NASA calls it, will offer insights into two long-standing wild cards of climate change—clouds and aerosols—while providing new details about the temperatures and chemistry of the planet’s changing surface. The satellite fleets also mark a revival for NASA’s earth science, which has languished over the past decade compared with exploration of Mars and other planets. More (Source: Science Magazine - May 6)
EUROPE PROPOSES ORBITING SATELLITE TELESCOPE THAT WILL KEEP AN EYE ON SPACE DEBRIS - The European Space Agency (ESA) has proposed a plan to build and launch a satellite with a telescope that can monitor space debris. If the member nations approved the funding, the space agency hopes to complete the project by 2025, reported Space.com. It will be the first of its kind space junk monitoring satellite.ESA is an intergovernmental organization made up of 22 member states. More (Source: Firstpost - May 6)
SPACEX CARGO LAUNCH TO SPACE STATION SET FOR JUNE 3 FROM LAUNCH COMPLEX 39A AT KENNEDY SPACE CENTER - SpaceX’s 22nd Commercial Resupply Services mission – the second cargo resupply mission on the company’s upgraded version of its Dragon spacecraft – is targeted to launch Thursday, June 3, on a Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Among the investigations arriving inside the Dragon’s pressurized capsule will be a variety of research experiments... More (Source: SpaceCoastDaily.com - May 5)
STARLINK LAUNCH MARKS 100 MISSIONS SINCE AN IN-FLIGHT FALCON ROCKET FAILURE - The oldest Falcon 9 booster in SpaceX’s operational rocket fleet sent 60 more Starlink internet satellites into space Tuesday with a launch from historic pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. With the 60 satellites launched Tuesday, SpaceX has sent 1,565 Starlink spacecraft into orbit to beam broadband signals around the world, nearly nine times as many satellites in any other company’s constellation. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 5)
ROCKET DEBRIS FROM CHINA'S SPACE STATION LAUNCH IS FALLING BACK TO EARTH — BUT WHERE? - A large Chinese rocket is set to make an uncontrolled reentry back into Earth's atmosphere, but it is not yet clear exactly where or when the debris will hit our planet. China's Long March 5B rocket is "unpredictably" falling back to Earth after launching a part of the new T-shaped Chinese space station on Thursday local time in Wenchang, according to SpaceNews. The 22.5-metric-ton Tianhe space station module is in its correct orbit after separating as planned from the core stage of the rocket, which is now expected to re-enter in a few days or about a week. More (Source: Space.com - May 4)
ROSCOSMOS DISCUSSES ISS WITHDRAWAL STRATEGY AND NEW SPACE STATION FOR MID-2020S - Recently, Russian authorities began talking about a potential withdrawal from the International Space Station (ISS) project in 2025. In place of ISS, the Russian space industry would gain ROSS – a new orbital station that’s name stands for Russian Orbital Service Station. According to Roscosmos representatives, the withdrawal from the ISS will be gradual, which means that for some time the ISS and ROSS will work in space in parallel. At the same time, Russia and China have plans to build a lunar space station together. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - May 4)
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