SPACEX ACES LAST DRAGON PARACHUTE TEST BEFORE CREW LAUNCH - SpaceX completed Friday the last drop test of the Dragon crew capsule’s parachutes before the first launch of astronauts on the human-rated ship May 27, while technicians at Cape Canaveral have mated the spacecraft’s crew module with its unpressurized trunk section. The drop test from a C-130 cargo plane Friday was the 27th and final test of the “Mark 3” parachute design SpaceX will use for the Crew Dragon spacecraft. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 4)
HOW AMATEUR SATELLITE TRACKERS ARE KEEPING AN 'EYE' ON OBJECTS AROUND THE EARTH - Around the planet, a loosely knit but closely woven band of amateurs monitor the whereabouts of satellites — be they secretive spacecraft, robotic space drones, rocket stages, orbital debris or lost-in-space planetary probes. But what's the motivation behind this group of sky prowling spirits? What kind of tools are they using now or in the future to purge secrets from space — at times revealing what some countries don't want others to know about? More (Source: Space.com - May 3)
SCIENTISTS HAVE FOUND A WAY TO USE SATELLITE IMAGERY TO DETECT PLASTIC POLLUTION IN THE OCEAN - In 2018, Lauren Biermann was scouring a satellite image of the ocean off the coast of the Isle of May, Scotland, searching for signs of floating seaweed for a project at her university. Her eyes were drawn to lines of white dots gently curving along an ocean front. “It was weird because I was seeing floating things that didn’t look like plants, and I didn’t know what they could be,” Biermann, an Earth observation scientist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the U.K., explained. More (Source: The Rising - May 3)
HUBBLE'S IMPACTFUL LIFE ALONGSIDE SPACE DEBRIS - During its 30 years in orbit around Earth, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has witnessed the changing nature of spaceflight as the skies have filled with greater numbers of satellites, the International Space Station was born and in-space crashes and explosions have created clouds of fast-moving space debris. Hubble itself has felt the impact of this debris, accumulating tiny impact craters across its solar panels that evidence a long and eventful life in space. More (Source: Phys.org - May 2)
NEW SATELLITE GIVES CLEAREST VIEW YET OF POLAR ICE MELT - A cutting-edge NASA satellite has provided one of the most detailed looks yet at glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica. The findings are clearer than ever: Both ice sheets are losing billions of tons of mass into the ocean each year, contributing significantly to global sea-level rise. The results were published yesterday in the journal Science by a team of researchers from around the country, led by Ben Smith of the University of Washington. More (Source: Scientific American - May 2)
LONG MARCH 5B ROLLED OUT FOR CREWED SPACECRAFT, SPACE STATION TEST LAUNCH - China rolled out a Long March 5B launcher Wednesday for a mission to prove space station launch capabilities and test a new spacecraft for deep space human spaceflight. Images of the Long March 5B shared on Chinese social media indicated that the rollout at Wenchang Satellite Launch Center was completed early April 29. Launch from the coastal Wenchang launch site can now be expected around May 5. However, an official announcement has not yet been made. More (Source: SpaceNews - May 1)
NASA WILL TEST A NEW SPACECRAFT SOLAR SAIL USING A NANOAVIONICS SATELLITE - NASA is going to test a new solar sail system to determine if it’s a viable alternative to propellant-based thrusters for maneuvering small satellites, and potentially for low-cost transportation of spacecraft set on deep-space missions. The agency has selected Illinois-based NanoAvionics to provide the spacecraft that will be used to test the solar sail system, the company announced today. More (Source: TechCrunch - Apr 30)
SPACE FORCE GENERAL TROLLS IRANIAN MILITARY SATELLITE LAUNCH — ‘SPACE IS HARD’ - Iran’s Revolutionary Guard claimed last week to have put its first military satellite into orbit, revealing in the process a secret space program that fuels already-escalating tensions between the U.S. and Tehran. The launch followed an April 15 incident in which nearly a dozen Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps vessels harassed six U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf, an action that prompted President Donald Trump to tweet instructions for the “United States Navy to shoot down and destroy any and all Iranian gunboats if they harass our ships at sea.” More (Source: Military Times - Apr 30)
COMMERCIAL SOYUZ FLIGHT TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION PLANNED FOR 2022-2023 - A six-month commercial Soyuz flight to the International Space Station (ISS) is planned for 2022-2023, according to files obtained by Sputnik. According to the documents, the launch of a Soyuz MS-23 spacecraft with a Russian cosmonaut as crew commander and two unknown crew members is planned for October 2022, while a return to Earth is planned for April 2023. No details are provided on the two passengers. More (Source: Space Daily - Apr 29)
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