JAPANESE CARGO SPACECRAFT SET TO BLAST OFF FROM TANEGASHIMA SPACE CENTER BOUND FOR ISS - A Japanese cargo spacecraft loaded with more than four tons of supplies, spare parts and experiment hardware is scheduled to launch from the Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan to the International Space Station at 12:05 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, Sept. 24. Live coverage of the launch and capture will air on NASA Television and the agency’s website. More (Source: SpaceCoastDaily.com - Sep 23)
LONG MARCH 3B LAUNCHES LATEST BEIDOU-3M SATELLITES - China successfully launched a new pair of navigation satellites on Sunday. The launch of Beidou-3M19 (Beidou-47) and Beidou-3M20 (Beidou-48) took place from the LC2 Launch Complex of the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, Sichuan province, using the Long March-3B/YZ-1 (Y65) – Chang Zheng-3B/YZ-1 – launch vehicle. Launch time was 21:10 UTC and it took four hours to complete the mission. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Sep 23)
RUSSIA SAYS IT WILL KEEP SOURCE OF HOLE (AND AIR LEAK) ON SOYUZ SECRET— BUT NASA WANTS TO KNOW: REPORT - Amid reports that the Russians will keep the cause of an air leak discovered at the International Space Station in 2018 secret, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has promised to speak personally with the head of the Russian space agency. "They have not told me anything," Bridenstine said during a Houston energy conference question session Thursday (Sept. 19), according to the Houston Chronicle. But he emphasized that he wants to keep good relations with the Russians, one of the two chief partners on the orbiting complex. More (Source: Space.com - Sep 22)
JAPANESE CARGO LAUNCH RESET FOR MONDAY AFTER FIRE - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, the prime contractor for Japan’s H-2B rocket, said Friday that engineers concluded a fire on the launch pad during a countdown earlier this month was most likely sparked by static electricity and stimulated by oxygen. The H-2B rocket launch has been rescheduled for Monday at 12:30 p.m. EDT (1630 GMT), MHI said in a statement Friday. Launch time is set for 1:30 a.m. Tuesday in Japan. The 186-foot-tall (56.6-meter) rocket will carry Japan’s eighth HTV cargo ship into orbit on a mission to resupply the International Space Station. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 21)
NOAA WEATHER SATELLITE TRANSFERRED TO U.S. AIR FORCE - A retired National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration geostationary weather satellite is being handed over to the U.S. Air Force to fill in a gap in the service’s forecasting requirements. NOAA spokesman John Leslie confirmed Sept. 19 that the GOES-13 satellite, decommissioned by NOAA in 2018, is being transferred to the Air Force to operate at a new orbital location, which the agency did not disclose. More (Source: SpaceNews - Sep 21)
SKY IS NO LIMIT FOR NEW GENERATION OF FLEXIBLE SATELLITES - Thales and Boeing last week announced proposals for a new generation of flexible satellites, capable of coping with the changing demands of customers who want mobile phones that can connect to the web on planes, trains and cars as well as in isolated regions, such as Africa and Central America. More (Source: Financial Times - Sep 20)
CHINA LAUNCHES 5 NEW EARTH OBSERVATION SATELLITES INTO ORBIT (VIDEO) - A Chinese Long March 11 rocket successfully launched five new remote-sensing satellites today (Sept. 19). The rocket lifted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China's Gobi Desert at 2:42 p.m. local time (2:42 a.m. EDT; 0642 GMT), lofting the Zhuhai-1 Group-3 satellites into orbit. Those satellites will join a commercial satellite constellation built and operated by the Chinese company Zhuhai Orbita Aerospace Science and Technology Co., Ltd. That constellation, called Zhuhai-1, will ultimately consist of 34 small satellites... More (Source: Space.com - Sep 20)
NO SPACE CRASH: DEAD RUSSIAN SATELLITE JUST MISSED AN OLD HABITAT PROTOTYPE IN ORBIT - It could have been bad. There was a 5.6% chance that two big pieces of space debris — Bigelow Aerospace's Genesis II experimental habitat and Russia's defunct Cosmos 1300 satellite — would collide high above Earth early this morning (Sept. 18). That warning came yesterday (Sept. 17) via Twitter from Bigelow Aerospace representatives, who cited analyses by the U.S. Air Force. More (Source: Space.com - Sep 19)
ISRAELI COMPANY PLANS SECOND SATELLITE LAUNCH FOR THE INTERNET OF THINGS - An Israeli space startup promises that its second satellite will offer a lot in a small package. NSLComm's newly announced NSLSat-2 will eventually form part of a network of nanosatellites meant to monitor assets from space in many industries, such as oil, shipping and agriculture. NSLSat-2 will launch within six months, joining another satellite called NSLSat-1 that flew to orbit in July. More (Source: Forbes - Sep 19)
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