JAPANESE COMPANY TO LAUNCH ARTIFICIAL METEOR SHOWER SATELLITE - A small Japanese satellite scheduled for launch Friday on a Rocket Lab Electron booster will release hundreds of colorful sky pellets to fall into the atmosphere next year, creating an artificial meteor shower that could be visible to millions. The satellite, built and owned by Tokyo-based Astro Live Experiences, will launch into a 250-mile-high (400-kilometer) polar orbit to prepare for next year’s sky spectacle. On-board thrusters will help target re-entry over a specific region for the artificial shooting stars.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Nov 29)

NEXT BATCH OF PLANET’S UPGRADED EARTH-IMAGING SATELLITES READY FOR LAUNCH - A dozen SuperDove nanosatellites with improved vision are set to join Planet’s Earth-observing fleet Tuesday night (U.S. time) after riding into orbit aboard an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle alongside an Indian mapping payload. The 12 SuperDove satellites will lift off on India’s PSLV at 10:58 p.m. EST Tuesday (0358 GMT Wednesday) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, located on Sriharikota Island on India’s southeastern coast.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Nov 27)

INDIA’S PSLV CONDUCTS CARTOSAT-3 LAUNCH - India deployed the first in a new generation of remote sensing satellites Wednesday, via its PSLV rocket. The Cartosat-3 satellite lifted off at 09:28 local time (03:58 UTC), with the PSLV taking just under eighteen minutes to place it into orbit. Thirteen nanosatellites were also deployed by Wednesday’s launch.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Nov 27)

RUSSIA LAUNCHES SPACE SURVEILLANCE SATELLITE - A modified Soyuz rocket delivered a top secret Russian military payload into orbit Monday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, according to the country’s defense ministry. The mission lifted off from the Site 43 launch complex at Plesetsk at 1752 GMT (12:52 p.m. EST; 8:52 p.m. Moscow time) Monday. A Soyuz 2-1v rocket carried a Volga upper stage and the classified military satellite into space, and the Volga stage successfully delivered its payload into the targeted orbit, Russian officials said.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Nov 26)

ARIANE 5 LAUNCH WITH TIBA-1 AND INMARSAT GX5 SCRUBBED - After a short three-month break between flights, Arianespace is looking to return to action with the launch of two telecommunications satellites in TIBA-1 and Inmarsat GX5 on an Ariane 5 rocket. Liftoff from Ariane Launch Complex No. 3 (ELA 3) at the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana was scheduled to occur at the start of a 95-minute launch window on Friday before being scrubbed with less than 20 minutes to launch. Another attempt will take place on Sunday.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Nov 25)

CHINA LAUNCHES TWO MORE BEIDOU NAVIGATION SATELLITES - Maintaining a rapid-fire launch cadence to close out the year, China added two more Beidou satellites to its independent positioning, navigation and timing fleet Saturday with a successful launch aboard a Long March 3B rocket. The Long March 3B launcher, standing 184 feet (56 meters) tall, lifted off from the Xichang space base at 0055 GMT Saturday (7:55 p.m. EST Friday), according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Nov 25)

NASA CONTRACTS SPACEX TO LAUNCH ANOTHER DRAGON FILLED WITH CARGO - The 19th SpaceX Commercial Resupply Services (CRS-19) contract mission for NASA carries a variety of cutting-edge scientific experiments to the International Space Station. The Dragon cargo spacecraft blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on a Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than Dec. 4, 2019. Its payloads include investigations studying malting barley in microgravity, the spread of fire and bone and muscle loss, which will be added to the dozens of research projects already under way aboard the microgravity lab.   More
(Source: Space Daily - Nov 22)

EGYPT TO SEND FIRST COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE INTO ORBIT ON FRIDAY - Egypt will launch its first communications satellite into orbit on Friday to improve its communications and internet services and attract investment. Tiba-1 is due to be launched just after 11pm local time on one of Europe's Arianespace rockets from a space centre in French Guiana, officials said. It is named after Thebes, or Tiba in Arabic, an ancient Egyptian capital whose ruins are in the modern southern city of Luxor.   More
(Source: The National - Nov 22)

ITU WORLD RADIOCOMMUNICATION CONFERENCE ADOPTS NEW REGULATORY PROCEDURES FOR NON-GEOSTATIONARY SATELLITES - The 38th ITU World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-19) has adopted a new innovative milestone-based regulatory approach for the deployment of non-geostationary satellite orbit (NGSO) satellites in specific bands and services. The agreement reached at WRC-19 establishes regulatory procedures for the deployment of non-geostationary satellites, including mega-constellations in low-Earth orbit (LEO).   More
(Source: Space Daily - Nov 22)

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