FALCON 9 ROCKET OVERCOMES ENGINE FAILURE TO DEPLOY STARLINK SATELLITES - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket overcame a rare in-flight engine failure soon after launch from Florida’s Space Coast Wednesday to place 60 satellites in orbit for the company’s Starlink Internet network. One of the rocket’s nine first stage engines shut down prematurely around 2 minutes, 22 seconds, after liftoff from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, an event visible in a view from a camera streaming live video from the Falcon 9 as it climbed into the upper atmosphere.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Mar 19)

SOYUZ LAUNCH PREPS IN KAZAKHSTAN PROCEED DESPITE TRAVEL RESTRICTIONS - While Arianespace missions from French Guiana have been suspended in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the company says a Soyuz rocket launch from Kazakhstan is set to go ahead Saturday with 34 more OneWeb broadband satellites. The next crew to launch to the International Space Station is also on track for liftoff April 9 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, a Russian-operated base on the Kazakh steppe, according to Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency.   More
(Source: SapceFlight Now - Mar 18)

ASTRONAUTS CELEBRATE ST. PATRICK'S DAY 2020 WITH PHOTOS OF IRELAND FROM SPACE - Happy St. Patrick's Day from space! To celebrate the annual holiday, NASA's International Space Station twitter account shared this astronaut's-eye view of Ireland as seen from the orbiting lab, which flies at an average altitude of about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Earth. "We hope you're wearing green," NASA tweeted. "This #StPatricksDay, enjoy an astronaut's-eye view of Ireland, taken from aboard the International Space Station."   More
(Source: Space.com - Mar 18)

SOYUZ ROCKET LAUNCHES GLONASS-M NAVIGATION SATELLITE FOR RUSSIAN MILITARY - A Soyuz rocket launched a new navigation satellite into orbit for Russia's military forces on Monday (March 16) in a dazzling nighttime liftoff from a snowy launchpad. The Soyuz 2.1b rocket launched the Glonass-M navigation satellite from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia at 9:28 p.m. Moscow time (2:28 p.m. EDT/1828 GMT). The Soyuz's Fregat upper stage then delivered the satellite to its final orbit.   More
(Source: Space.com - Mar 18)

SPACEX TO LAUNCH INTELSAT-40E SATELLITE - Intelsat has selected SpaceX to launch the Intelsat-40e geostationary communications satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket in 2022. Intelsat-40e will be the second Intelsat satellite to launch on a SpaceX rocket, following the Intelsat-35e Falcon 9 mission in 2017.    More
(Source: SpaceNews - Mar 18)

THE VIRUS HAS GONE GLOBAL—SO WHAT HAPPENS TO THE LAUNCH INDUSTRY? - As the coronavirus pandemic continues to sweep the country, it is beginning to affect the global launch industry. As with pretty much every other aspect of life in this age of uncertainty and COVID-19, conditions can change on a day-by-day, if not hourly, basis. But as of early afternoon on Monday, here's the state of play at major spaceports around the world.   More
(Source: Ars Technica - Mar 17)

THESE SPACE SURVEILLANCE SATELLITES JUST GOT AN UPGRADE - The 1st Space Operations Squadron recently completed a major overhaul of the ground system for the U.S. military’s Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program, which uses satellites to collect space situational awareness data about other objects on orbit. “There have been a series of robust security upgrades,” said Capt. Bradley Frost, 1st SOPS satellite engineer. “There have been new hardware and bug fixes that have significantly increased the reliability of the system. To sum it up, it’s better, faster and more secure than ever before.”    More
(Source: C4ISRNet - Mar 16)

SPACEX FALCON 9 ROCKET ABORTS STARLINK SATELLITE CONSTELLATION LAUNCH AT LAST SECOND - SpaceX aborted the launch of 60 new Starlink satellites at the last second today (March 15) due to an engine power issue with the mission's Falcon 9 rocket. The Falcon 9 rocket's onboard computer triggered an abort just before a scheduled 9:22 a.m. EDT (1322 GMT) liftoff after detecting an issue with one of its nine Merlin 1D engines.   More
(Source: Space.com - Mar 16)

WITH CORONAVIRUS SPREADING, NASA MAY TWEAK ASTRONAUT PRELAUNCH QUARANTINE PLANS - The procedure to ensure that astronauts don't bring an illness to the International Space Station is under evaluation as NASA enacts tactics to help slow the spread of the novel-coronavirus disease COVID-19. Governments and agencies around the world have been enacting measures meant to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus; those measures include social distancing and quarantines for people who think they may have been exposed to the virus.   More
(Source: Space.com - Mar 15)

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