GERSTENMAIER WARNS AGAINST ENDING SPACE STATION PROGRAM PREMATURELY - The former head of NASA’s human spaceflight program, now working as a consultant to SpaceX, said he welcomes greater commercial activity in low Earth orbit but cautioned against ending the International Space Station prematurely. Bill Gerstenmaier discussed the importance of the ISS, from a technical and policy standpoint, during a virtual town hall meeting Sept. 5 by the Los Angeles-Las Vegas Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). More (Source: SpaceNews - Sep 9)
GERMANY EYES SPACE SATELLITE LAUNCHPAD IN NORTH SEA - The German government is studying a proposal from German industry to create a mobile launchpad for satellites in the North Sea. Under the plan, small satellites weighing up to one tonne would be launched with German-built rockets. No site has been chosen yet, but it would be in Germany's economic zone. The Federation of German Industries (BDI) is lobbying for the project, German media report. It would be a public-private partnership. More (Source: BBC News - Sep 9)
THE US SPACE FORCE IS USING A REPURPOSED CIVILIAN SATELLITE FOR WEATHER DATA - The U.S. Space Force can now collect critical weather data from a repurposed government satellite, the armed service announced Sept. 8, ensuring that war fighters have an accurate picture of what’s happening over the Indian Ocean. The Space Force declared initial operational capability of the Electro-optical Infrared Weather System Geostationary satellite, a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather satellite known as GOES-13. More (Source: C4ISRNet - Sep 9)
ONE MAN'S INCREDIBLE PROJECT CATALOGS 57,424 MANMADE OBJECTS IN SPACE, INCLUDING ELON MUSK'S CAR - If you've ever wondered why people complain about "space junk," look no further than the General Catalog of Artificial Space Objects, or GCAT. It's the most complete catalog of every manmade object floating in space, including everything from satellites and spacecraft to debris and one infamous Tesla Roadster. The open-source GCAT was the life's work of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics astronomer Jonathan McDowell, who first started tracking rocket launches as a kid, according to Vice. More (Source: The Drive - Sep 8)
CORONAVIRUS DELAYS PUSH BACK LAUNCH OF NEXT LANDSAT TO SEPTEMBER 2021 - The launch of the next Landsat land imaging mission — a joint project between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey — has been delayed until around September 2021 after the effects of the coronavirus pandemic slowed work on the spacecraft in Arizona, NASA officials said. The Landsat 9 satellite is the next in a series of land imaging missions launched since 1972, collecting views from space of urban sprawl, tropical deforestation, retreating glaciers, and changes in coral reefs, crops, and tectonic faults. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 8)
CHINESE ROCKET BOOSTER APPEARS TO CRASH NEAR SCHOOL DURING GAOFEN 11 SATELLITE LAUNCH - A Chinese Long March 4B rocket successfully launched a new Earth-watching satellite Monday (Sep. 7) but the booster's spent first stage narrowly missed a school when it fell back to Earth, witness videos show. The Long March 4B rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China, at 1:57 p.m. local time (1:57 a.m. EDT, 0557 GMT). It carried the powerful Gaofen 11 (02) Earth observation satellite, an optical observation satellite capable of returning high resolution images, showing features as smaller than 3 feet (1 meter) across. More (Source: Space.com - Sep 8)
SPACEX’S SATELLITE ISP NOW BOASTS DOWNLOAD SPEEDS OF MORE THAN 100 MBPS - When Elon Musk and SpaceX proposed building an ISP comprised of satellites in low earth orbit, it seemed like a project straight out of sci-fi. And while SpaceX has launched less than 800 of its eventual 12,000 satellite goal, the company just announced that its space-based internet service Starlink is already capable of delivering download speeds upward of 100 Mbps. More (Source: Gizmodo Australia - Sep 7)
ISS STILL LEAKING AIR AS NASA RACES TO LOCATE MYSTERIOUS HOLE - NASA has admitted that it’s still not found the source of a mysterious air leak in the International Space Station despite the frantic search now entering its third week. The cabin breach disclosed on August 20 has forced the station’s three crew members into its Russian segment while the US space agency investigates. More (Source: New York Post - Sep 5)
VEGA ROCKET DEPLOYS 53 SATELLITES ON SUCCESSFUL RETURN TO FLIGHT MISSION - Delayed a year by a launch failure, the coronavirus pandemic and a stretch of stiff upper level winds this summer, an Italian-made Vega rocket vaulted into orbit from French Guiana on Wednesday night and deployed 53 small satellites from 13 countries to punctuate a flawless return to flight mission. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 5)
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