TWO OLD SPACECRAFT JUST AVOIDED CATASTROPHICALLY COLLIDING IN ORBIT - About 1000 kilometres above Earth’s surface, two old spacecraft have narrowly avoided a collision. If they had hit one another, the smash-up could have created a spray of debris that would be extremely dangerous for other satellites and could set off a chain reaction of collisions. The two objects are a Soviet Parus navigation satellite launched in 1989 and a Chinese rocket booster launched in 2009. Neither has any method of propulsion onboard, so there is no way to steer them away from one another. More (Source: New Scientist - Oct 17)
ASTRONAUTS SET TO LAUNCH SECURITY SATELLITE FROM SPACE STATION - Spire Global is a startup that is pivoting so quickly that in the past 18 months, it’s added specialties such as weather tracking and data services to its initial work on tracking ships and aircraft from orbit. Now the company has a contract with the Australian Office of National Intelligence to experiment with commercial satellite technologies, including “machine learning” — an application of artificial intelligence that allows a system to learn and improve classification from an initial dataset. More (Source: Forbes - Oct 17)
U.S.-EUROPEAN SEA LEVEL SATELLITE GEARS UP FOR LAUNCH - The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich spacecraft will soon be heading into orbit to monitor the height of the ocean for nearly the entire globe. Preparations are ramping up for the Nov. 10 launch of the world's latest sea level satellite. Since arriving in a giant cargo plane at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California last month, Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich has been undergoing final checks, including visual inspections, to make sure it's fit to head into orbit. More (Source: NASA - Oct 17)
SWEDEN TO LAUNCH SATELLITES FROM SPACE CENTER INSIDE THE ARCTIC CIRCLE - The space center in northern Sweden is mostly known for launching sounding rockets and research balloons. Now, the Swedish Space Corporation wants to be the first location north of the Arctic Circle to provide facilities for launching satellites into orbit. 90 million kronor (€8,6 million) was this week granted by the government and comes in addition to previous investment in creating a test facility at Esrange. More (Source: The Independent Barents Observer - Oct 16)
SPACEX TO LAUNCH SATELLITE TRACKING RISING SEA LEVELS - A new payload that Elon Musk’s SpaceX will deliver into orbit next month will play a pivotal role in measuring sea level increases, potentially helping to spare economies from billions of euros in damages by the end of this century. The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite lifts off Nov. 10 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket that will be launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Its mission will be to track how the accelerating rise of sea levels are changing coastlines, threatening the habitat of more than a third of the world’s population. The European Space Agency will provide details about the mission on Friday at 4 p.m. in Paris. More (Source: BloombergQuint - Oct 16)
SOYUZ CREW DOCKS WITH INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - In a mission marking the end of an era, NASA astronaut and former virus hunter Kate Rubins, using NASA’s last currently contracted seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, rocketed into orbit Wednesday with two cosmonaut crewmates on a record-setting flight to the International Space Station. Celebrating her 42nd birthday, Rubins’ launch came just two weeks before 20th anniversary of the arrival of the station’s first crew on Nov. 2, 2000. Since then, the lab complex has been continuously staffed by rotating crews, or expeditions, of American, Russian, Japanese, European and Canadian fliers along with a handful of space tourists. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 15)
US SPACE FORCE’S NEXT COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE CLEARS MILESTONE - The U.S. Space Force has completed preliminary design review of its new Wideband Global SATCOM satellites, bringing the program one step closer to beginning production. “This engineering design review is a key milestone because it means we are one step closer to delivering this groundbreaking satellite to the wa rfighter in record timing, significantly improving capacity and coverage to soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.” said Col. John Dukes, chief of the Geosynchronous/Polar Division, which falls under the Space and Missile Systems Center’s Production Corps. More (Source: C4ISRNet - Oct 15)
SPACE STATION’S SOLAR PANELS, WINDOWS HAVE MARKS OF MICRO METEOR DAMAGE — COSMONAUT - The solar panels and windows of the International Space Station (ISS) have marks of minor damage from micrometeorite hits but they are smaller than the projected degradation, Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergei Ryzhikov said at a pre-flight press conference on Tuesday. More (Source: TASS - Oct 15)
NASA ASTRONAUT KATE RUBINS IS READY FOR A 2ND 'BUCKET LIST' TRIP TO THE SPACE STATION - Just a few weeks ahead of the 20th anniversary of a continuous human presence in space, NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Russian cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov are scheduled to launch for a stay on the International Space Station. The launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in southern Kazakhstan is scheduled for 1:45 am ET on Wednesday and will be broadcast live on NASA's website. More (Source: CNN - Oct 15)
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