WHY IN THE NEXT DECADE COMPANIES WILL LAUNCH THOUSANDS MORE SATELLITES THAN IN ALL OF HISTORY - If a handful of space companies succeed, the next decade will see more satellites put into orbit around the Earth than all the satellites launched since Sputnik 1 in 1957. While SpaceX makes up the lion’s share of these plans, together with OneWeb, Telesat and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, the four companies have announced the intention to launch as many as 46,100 satellites in the next few years. That’s more than five times the amount of objects sent to space in the past 60 years, which numbers just shy of 9,000 according to the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.   More
(Source: CNBC - Dec 16)

KEPLER TO LAUNCH TWO BATCHES OF NANOSATELLITES ABOARD SPACEX’S FALCON 9 - Small-satellite startup Kepler Communications is teaming up with SpaceX to make good on its deployment goals for its first nanosatellite constellation. SpaceX will carry two separate batches of nanosatellites from Kepler aboard its Falcon 9 launch vehicles. Kepler Communications, a Toronto-based space startup, will be building out a low-power, direct IoT connectivity satellite-based network, as well as a more high-capacity network powered with the same satellites to provide high-speed data transfer capabilities.   More
(Source: TechCrunch - Dec 14)

NASA GIVES GO-AHEAD FOR STARLINER TEST FLIGHT TO SPACE STATION - NASA officials cleared Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft for flight Thursday after a “thorough and comprehensive” review of the crew capsule’s readiness, setting the stage for final pre-launch preparations at Cape Canaveral ahead of liftoff Dec. 20 on an unpiloted demonstration mission to the International Space Station.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 14)

CHINA JOINS SATELLITE SPACE RACE: CHINESE COMPANY TO LAUNCH 5G COMMS SATELLITE - The first low-Earth broadband satellite in the part of the spectrum that will be the next frontier of satellite communications, the high-frequency Q/V band, is set for launch by a Chinese company. The Global Times reported Thursday that Chinese commercial aerospace company Galaxy Space plans to launch the low-Earth broadband 5G satellite at the end of the month. Beijing Daily reported that the company announced at a global 5G conference in China that the 10Gbps satellite will be launched from a site in Jiuquan, China.    More
(Source: Benzinga - Dec 13)

PHOTO OF THE DAY: BRIGHTLY-LIT BUCHAREST PHOTOGRAPHED AT NIGHT FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - The US space agency NASA has published a photo of Romania's capital Bucharest taken at night from the International Space Station. The photo shows the brightly-lit city with its boulevards and surroundings.   More
(Source: Romania-Insider.com - Dec 13)

RUSSIAN LAUNCHES SATELLITE TO REPLENISH ITS GLONASS NAVIGATION SYSTEM - Russia launched a new satellite to replenish its GLONASS navigation system, placed in orbit this Wednesday via a Soyuz-2-1b rocket with a Fregat-M upper stage, from Russian Plitsesk Cosmodrome, the Defense Ministry reoorted.    More
(Source: Prensa Latina - Dec 12)

ROCKET LAB TO DEBUT VIRGINIA LAUNCH PAD WITH U.S. AIR FORCE MISSION NEXT YEAR - Rocket Lab plans to launch a research and development microsatellite mission for the U.S. Air Force in the first half of 2020 on the the first flight from the company’s new launch facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, officials announced Thursday. Company officials announced the payload and launch schedule Thursday during a media briefing at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility to provide an update on Rocket Lab’s first U.S. launch pad.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 12)

INDIAN PSLV LAUNCHES RISAT-2BR1 MILITARY SATELLITE - ISRO launched the fiftieth PSLV mission Wednesday, with its workhorse rocket flying for the second time in barely a fortnight to deploy a radar imaging spy satellite for India’s military. The RISAT-2BR1 satellite was launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 15:25 local time (09:55 UTC), with deployment into low Earth orbit expected sixteen and a half minutes later. RISAT-2BR1 is an all-weather radar reconnaissance satellite, able to image the Earth in both daylight and at night, regardless of any clouds obscuring the surface.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Dec 12)

REFUELING SATELLITES IN SPACE WITH THE HELP OF A ROBOT - Many technologies that are essential for daily life—from communications to GPS navigation to weather forecasting—rely on the thousands of satellites that are orbiting Earth. When those satellites run out of gas and stop working, there's not much that can currently be done to fix them. "When a satellite runs out of fuel, and you don't have a way to refuel it, that satellite stops working," said John Wen, professor and head of the Department of Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.    More
(Source: Phys.org - Dec 12)

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