ASTRONAUTS 'CAPTURE THE FLAG' FOR SPACEX IN RACE TO REACH SPACE STATION - "Congratulations SpaceX, you got the flag." Just one day after riding SpaceX's Crew Dragon "Endeavour" to a historic docking with the International Space Station, spacecraft commander Doug Hurley held out a small American flag for the company behind his and fellow NASA astronaut Bob Behnken's arrival at the orbiting complex. More (Source: Space.com - Jun 5)
EARTH FROM SPACE: 'OVERVIEW EFFECT' COULD HELP TROUBLED COUNTRY, ASTROPHYSICIST NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON SAYS - Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks we could all use a strong dose of the overview effect right now. "Amid the turbulence of a pandemic & racedemic, I offer this reflection on what Earth looks like from space, as only an Apollo astronaut can tell it," the astrophysicist and science communicator, who directs the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, said via Twitter on Saturday (May 30). More (Source: Space.com - Jun 4)
SPACEX LAUNCHES 60 STARLINK SATELLITES AND LANDS ROCKET IN DAZZLING NIGHTTIME LIFTOFF - SpaceX successfully launched a new batch of 60 Starlink internet satellites into orbit late Wednesday (June 3) and nailed a rocket landing at sea to top off the mission. The launch is the second in five days for the California-based rocket builder. On Saturday (May 30), a different Falcon 9 rocket sent NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley toward the International Space Station aboard a Crew Dragon capsule, kicking of SpaceX's landmark Demo-2 mission. The duo docked with the orbiting lab about 19 hours later and will remain there from one to four months. More (Source: Space.com - Jun 4)
CHINA OUTLINES AMBITIOUS PLAN TO BUILD SPACE STATION IN ORBIT - China has an ambitious new plan to build a space station in orbit by 2023. Why it matters: The U.S. sees China as a rival in space, so any large undertaking like this one will be watched closely. The space station also represents the evolution of China's space program, which made use of two smaller test stations in orbit that hosted crew before moving on to this more complex design. More (Source: Axios - Jun 3)
TWO CHINESE LAUNCHES DEPLOY SATELLITES FOR EARTH-IMAGING, TECH DEMONSTRATIONS - Two launches of Chinese rockets Friday and Sunday successfully placed Earth-imaging and technology demonstration satellites into orbit. The two missions, which took off from different spaceports, flew board Long March 11 and Long March 2D rockets. A four-stage Long March 11 launcher fired out of a mobile canister at 2013 GMT (4:13 p.m. EDT) Friday and lit its solid-fueled first stage to soar into space from the Xichang launch base in southwestern China’s Sichuan province. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 2)
SPACEX TARGETS WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR NEXT STARLINK LAUNCH - Days after launching astronauts for the first time, SpaceX is set to resume a speedy cadence of satellite launches Wednesday night with liftoff of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying the company’s next batch of Starlink broadband relay stations. A Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled for takeoff Wednesday, likely around 9:25 p.m. EDT (0125 GMT Thursday), from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 2)
MAKING HISTORY, ASTRONAUTS RIDE COMMERCIAL CAPSULE TO SPACE STATION - A Crew Dragon spaceship built and owned by SpaceX glided to an automated docking with the International Space Station Sunday, delivering NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken to the orbiting research complex after a trouble-free 19-hour flight from the Kennedy Space Center. The gumdrop-shaped capsule, named Endeavour by Hurley and Behnken in honor of NASA’s retired space shuttle, linked up with a docking adapter on the space station’s Harmony module at 10:16 a.m. EDT (1416 GMT) Sunday. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 1)
LONG MARCH 2D LOFTS GAOFEN-9 - A Long March 2D launched the Gaofen-9 (02) remote sensing satellite on Sunday, as China begins to ramp up its 2020 launch schedule. The launch took place at 8:53 UTC from the LC43/94 launch complex at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Inner Mongolia. The HEAD-4 satellite rode to orbit as a co-passenger. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Jun 1)
SPACEX'S 1ST CREW DRAGON WITH ASTRONAUTS DOCKS AT SPACE STATION IN HISTORIC RENDEZVOUS - SpaceX's first Crew Dragon spaceship to carry astronauts slid into a dock at the International Space Station Sunday (May 31), concluding a historic 19-hour voyage to for its veteran NASA crew. The arrival marked a major feat: the first docking of a crewed U.S. spacecraft at the station since NASA's shuttle fleet retired in 2011. It's also the first docking of a commercial spacecraft carrying humans, in this case astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley. More (Source: Space.com - May 31)
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