ASTRONAUTS REPAIR COSMIC RAY DETECTOR OUTSIDE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - Spacewalking astronauts attached new pumps to a cosmic ray detector outside the International Space Station on Monday in a bid to extend its scientific life. It was the third spacewalk in nearly three weeks for Italy’s Luca Parmitano and NASA’s Andrew Morgan. And it marked the culmination of years of work to repair the $2 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.   More
(Source: MarketWatch - Dec 3)

TWO CARGO FREIGHTERS SET FOR LAUNCH TO SPACE STATION THIS WEEK - Fresh off a series of three complex spacewalks to repair a $2 billion cosmic ray detector, the International Space Station’s crew is set to receive two robotic resupply freighters in the next week after launches from Florida’s Space Coast and the steppes of Kazakhstan. A SpaceX Dragon supply ship and Russian Progress cargo craft will deliver more than five tons of supplies, experiments and other equipment to the space station.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 3)

PREPARING THE NEXT GENERATION OF GPS - Thanks to GPS, your car, your phone, even your watch knows exactly where you are on the planet, by listening to a satellite signal from 12,000 miles over your head. GPS is always on, you don't pay anything to use it, and you never need to know how it works. But don't you kind of wonder? The U.S. Air Force runs the American Global Positioning System.   More
(Source: CBS News - Dec 2)

LAUNCH DELAYED OF SATELLITE FROM NEW ZEALAND THAT CREATES ARTIFICIAL SHOOTING STARS - Officials on Friday scrubbed launch of a satellite from New Zealand that spits out artificial shooting stars for expensive light shows in the sky. The satellite, built by Japan-based Astro Live Experiences, or ALE Co. Ltd., was packed on board an Electron rocket made by a new space company, Rocket Lab.   More
(Source: Space Daily - Dec 1)

RUSSIAN ROSCOSMOS SAYS PROGRESS MS-12 BURNS UP IN ATMOSPHERE AFTER UNDOCKING - Russia's Progress MS-12 cargo spacecraft, which undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) earlier on Friday, burned up as scheduled during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, with its debris landing in the Pacific Ocean, a representative of the main research arm of the Russian State Space Corporation Roscosmos said. "The elements of the Progress MS-12 spacecraft that did not burn fell in a non-navigable area of the South Pacific", the representative of the Central Research Institute for Machine Building said.   More
(Source: Space Daily - Dec 1)

CAN HUNDREDS OF UNRELATED SATELLITES CREATE A GPS BACKUP? - The head of the Space Development Agency wants to use proliferated low-Earth orbit satellites for navigation when GPS is unavailable. As adversaries develop tools that can jam or spoof Global Positioning System signals, the military has prioritized the development of alternative sources of positioning, navigation and timing data for the war fighter. Solutions range from using real-time drone imagery to chip-scale atomic clocks, but at the Association of the United States Army conference Oct. 16, Acting Director Derek Tournear threw out another idea: using the positioning and timing data of the hundreds of satellites his agency plans to put in orbit for navigation.    More
(Source: C4ISRNet - Nov 30)

INMARSAT LAUNCHES FIFTH SATELLITE IN GLOBAL XPRESS FLEET - Global mobile satellite communications company Inmarsat has successfully launched the company’s fifth satellite in its Global Xpress (GX) fleet. Named GX5, the satellite was on-board the Ariane 5 launch vehicle that took off from the Ariane Launch Complex No. 3 (ELA-3) in Kourou, French Guiana. Designed to provide additional, focused broadband capacity over Europe and the Middle East, the GX5 will enter commercial service early next year.    More
(Source: Aerospace Technology - Nov 30)

CHINA'S BIG AMBITIONS FOR SPACE ARE RIDING ON A DECEMBER LAUNCH - China's space program recently staged a show test of its first Mars lander on a nearly 460 feet (140-meter) tower at a site near Beijing, looking ahead to the program's launch next summer. But an equally crucial mission component faces a different kind of test in December. That's when the country's largest rocket will resume to flight, blasting off from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan island in southern China. The Long March 5, with a length of 184 feet (56 meters) and a mass at liftoff of nearly 2 million lbs. (867,000 kilograms)...   More
(Source: Space.com - Nov 30)

ASTRONAUT SNOOPY FLOATS ON SPACE STATION, FLIES IN MACY'S THANKSGIVING DAY PARADE - Snoopy, "the world famous astronaut," has reached new heights — above the streets of New York City and aboard the International Space Station. The Peanuts comic strip beagle took flight in real life on Thursday (Nov. 28), as a new, NASA-inspired giant balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade and as a plush doll floating aboard the orbiting laboratory. NASA crew members Jessica Meir and Christina Koch from on board the space station revealed the Astronaut Snoopy doll in a video shown as part of NBC's television coverage of the holiday celebration.   More
(Source: Space.com - Nov 29)

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