NASA INVESTIGATING SMALL AIR LEAK ON INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - NASA is tracking down the source of a minor air leak on the International Space Station. Crewmembers of the station's current Expedition 63 are in no immediate danger and will spend the weekend in the orbiting laboratory's Russian segment, inside the Zvezda service module, NASA officials said in an update today (Aug. 20). More (Source: Space.com - Aug 21)
BALL AEROSPACE COMPLETES SUCCESSFUL SMALL SATELLITE, GREEN FUEL MISSION - Ball Aerospace has successfully completed on-orbit testing of NASA's Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM), which included ASCENT, a non-toxic, high-performance propellant developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), on board a Ball-built small satellite. GPIM launched on June 25, 2019 at 2:30 a.m. EDT on board a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket and was commissioned in early July of the same year. More (Source: PRNewswire - Aug 21)
THE FCC HAS APPROVED AMAZON'S PLAN FOR ITS KUIPER SATELLITE CONSTELLATION. HERE'S WHAT THAT MEANS. - Amazon has official approval to deploy a new satellite constellation for broadband service. In late July, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates telecommunications services in the United States, voted 5-0 to allow the e-commerce company to deploy and operate a constellation of 3,236 satellites. Amazon first announced the initiative, called Kuiper, last year. More (Source: Space.com - Aug 21)
LAST IN CURRENT LINE OF JAPAN’S HTV CARGO SHIPS DEPARTS SPACE STATION - The last of Japan’s first series of HTV supply ships departed the International Space Station on Tuesday with several tons of trash, old batteries, and unneeded equipment, heading for a destructive re-entry before the debut of an upgraded cargo freighter design. The HTV cargo ship was released from the space station’s Canadian-built robotic arm at 1:36 p.m. EDT (1736 GMT) to wrap up an 85-day stay at the orbiting research outpost. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 20)
SPACE TRAFFIC CLEAR AT STATION UNTIL OCTOBER - The Expedition 63 crew has turned its attention toward space science and lab maintenance after releasing a Japanese cargo craft from the International Space Station on Tuesday. More cargo and crew missions to replenish the orbiting lab are planned for October. More (Source: NASA - Aug 20)
AIRBUS TO BUILD NEW GENERATION TELECOMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE FOR ARABSAT - Satellite operator Arabsat has contracted aerospace and defence company Airbus to build a new generation telecommunications satellite. The BADR-8 satellite will be created on the advanced Airbus Eurostar Neo electric orbit raising platform. It will feature TELEO optical communications payload demonstrator and enhance Arabsat’s capacity. More (Source: Aerospace Technology - Aug 20)
INDIA’S FIRST EARTH-IMAGING SATELLITE STARTUP RAISES $5 MILLION; FIRST LAUNCH PLANNED FOR LATER THIS YEAR - Bengaluru-based Pixxel is getting ready to launch its first Earth imaging satellite later this year, with a scheduled mission aboard a Soyuz rocket. The roughly one-and-a-half-year-old company is moving quickly, and today it’s announcing a $5 million seed funding round to help it accelerate even more. The funding is led by Blume Ventures, Lightspeed India Partners, and growX ventures, while a number of angel investors participated. More (Source: TechCrunch - Aug 20)
SPACEX SETS ROCKET-REUSE MILESTONE WITH SATELLITE LAUNCH - Hawthorne-based SpaceX set a record Tuesday for the reuse of its workhorse Falcon 9 rockets when it launched another batch of internet satellites into orbit. The Falcon 9 rocket that was used in Tuesday morning's launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida has been used in five previous missions. It is intended to become the first to ever be successfully launched and recovered six times. More (Source: Patch.com - Aug 19)
UGA TO LAUNCH TISSUE-BOX SIZED SATELLITE - The first launch is scheduled for late 2019 for one of two cube satellites made by the Small Satellite Research Laboratory at the University of Georgia. Cube satellites, otherwise known as CubeSats, weigh less than three pounds and are approximately the size of a loaf of bread. Catching a ride on a rocket from a "launch provider," each satellite plans to be in orbit between two and two and a half years. More (Source: GPB - Aug 18)
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