ELON MUSK’S SATELLITE INTERNET PROJECT IS TOO RISKY, RIVALS SAY - Elon Musk’s internet satellite venture has spawned an unlikely alliance of competitors, regulators and experts who say the billionaire is building a near-monopoly that is threatening space safety and the environment. The Starlink project, owned by Mr. Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. or SpaceX, is authorized to send some 12,000 satellites into orbit to beam superfast internet to every corner of the Earth. It has sought permission for another 30,000.   More
(Source: The Wall Street Journal - Apr 20)

DRAGON CREW REHEARSES FOR LAUNCH DAY, FIRST-LOOK WEATHER FORECAST LOOKS GOOD - After completing a dress rehearsal for launch day over the weekend, the four astronauts gearing up for liftoff Thursday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket are in good spirits and spending time with their families in Florida before leaving the planet for six months. Forecasters with the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron predict an 80% chance of acceptable weather for launch at 6:11 a.m. EDT (1011 GMT) Thursday from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Apr 20)

WORLD'S FIRST SPACE STATION LAUNCHED 50 YEARS AGO TODAY - On 19 April 1971, 50 years ago, the world’s first space station – Salyut 1 – was launched. Its debut success for the Soviet Salyut program paved the way for the future of space exploration, allowing astronauts to spend extended periods of time in space and conduct the scientific experiments and make the observations that have shaped human history, as well as breaking numerous space records, all ratified by the FAI.   More
(Source: World Air Sports Federation - Apr 20)

A BOOM IN SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY IS REVOLUTIONIZING THE WAY WE SEE THE EARTH - When researchers from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) published a study last year on its discovery of 11 new colonies of emperor penguins, they acknowledged an unusual source of assistance – students at Stirling High School in Scotland. Inspired by a David Attenborough program on the plight of the iconic bird, the teens and their teacher used satellite mapping imagery from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2, developed an algorithm, and found traces of unknown and unconfirmed colonies. They then passed on their findings to the BAS.   More
(Source: Landscape News - Apr 19)

RUSSIAN CAPSULE BRINGS HOME THREE SPACE FLIERS - Two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth early Saturday, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan amid preparations in Florida for launch of another station-bound crew Thursday aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. With Russian recovery forces and NASA support personnel standing by, the Soyuz spacecraft’s central crew module, descending under a single orange-and-white parachute, settled to an on target rocket-assisted touchdown at 12:55 a.m. EDT (10:55 a.m. local time) to close out a 185-day mission.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Apr 18)

BOEING’S STARLINER IS FURTHER DELAYED DUE TO ISS ‘TRAFFIC JAM’ CREATED BY SPACEX - SpaceX has already proved that it’s better at building human-carrying spacecraft than Boeing. Now its busy operation schedule is actually hampering Boeing’s effort to catch up. SpaceX has so many missions scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station in the coming months that there are no docking ports available for Boeing to conduct test flights with. SpaceX and Boeing are both contractors under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, tasked with building a reusable rocket-spacecraft system for transporting astronauts and payloads to the ISS.   More
(Source: Observer - Apr 17)

ST. VINCENT'S LA SOUFRIèRE VOLCANO ERUPTION SPOTTED FROM SPACE - New satellite imagery captures the relentless eruptions of the La Soufrière volcano on St. Vincent, which began on Friday (April 9). La Soufrière, which last erupted in 1979, is located on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent. After decades of inactivity, the volcano started rumbling late last year, when scientists noticed a new lava dome had formed, oozing lava in the volcano's summit crater.    More
(Source: Space.com - Apr 16)

NASA TO PROVIDE LIVE COVERAGE OF EXPEDITION 64 SPACE STATION CREW LANDING - Expedition 64 Flight Engineer Kate Rubins of NASA and two Roscosmos cosmonauts are scheduled to end their mission on the International Space Station Friday, April 16. Coverage of departure from the station and landing on Earth will air live on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. Rubins, along with Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, will close the hatch to the Soyuz MS-17 spacecraft at 6:10 p.m. EDT to begin the journey back to Earth.   More
(Source: SciTechDaily - Apr 15)

JUST IN: SPACE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY MOVING AHEAD WITH LOW-EARTH ORBIT SATELLITES - The Space Development Agency is moving forward with its fast-paced efforts to build a robust network of low-Earth orbit satellites, and the organization's leader is optimistic that funding for these initiatives will continue during the Biden administration. SDA was established in 2019 and tasked with coming up with a new approach to developing space-based capabilities that would be less expensive and more robust than legacy systems.   More
(Source: National Defense Magazine - Apr 15)

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