DRAGON SOARS ON RESEARCH AND RESUPPLY FLIGHT TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - A commercial Dragon supply freighter built and owned by SpaceX rocketed into a clear blue sky over Florida’s Space Coast Thursday with a menagerie of research experiments and holiday surprises heading for the International Space Station. Scientists loaded 40 genetically-engineered into the Dragon capsule to help gauge the effectiveness of an experimental drug to combat muscle and bone atrophy. There’s also an experiment sponsored by Anheuser-Busch to study the malting of barley in microgravity, which could lead to the brewing of beer in space, the company says. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 6)
FALCON 9 SCRUBS LAUNCH OF CRS-19 DRAGON TO THE ISS - SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will have to watch until Thursday afternoon to launch the company’s Dragon spacecraft on a resupply flight to the International Space Station. Falcon was set to lift off from Cape Canaveral at 12:51:58 local time (17:51 UTC), deploying Dragon a little over nine and a half minutes later to begin its mission. However, unacceptable upper level winds – and wind strength for recovery of the booster – scrubbed the launch ahead of prop loading. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Dec 5)
MEXICAN STUDENTS LAUNCH A SMALL SATELLITE TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - The first satellite built by students in Mexico for launch from the International Space Station is smaller than a shoebox but represents a big step for its builders. The project is part of NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative, which offers universities, high schools and non-profit organizations the opportunity to fly small satellites. Innovative technology partnerships keep down the cost, providing students a way to obtain hands-on experience developing flight hardware. More (Source: Space Daily - Dec 4)
NASA TELEVISION TO AIR SPACE STATION CARGO SHIP LAUNCH, DOCKING - NASA Television will provide live coverage of the launch and docking of a Russian cargo spacecraft delivering almost three tons of food, fuel and supplies to the International Space Station beginning at 4:15 a.m. EST Friday, Dec. 6. The Russian Progress 74 is scheduled to launch on a Soyuz rocket at 4:34 a.m. (2:34 p.m. Baikonur time) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. More (Source: WFMJ - Dec 4)
SPACEFLIGHT’S SEOPS-2 MISSION TO LAUNCH MULTIPLE SPACECRAFT FROM INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - Spaceflight, the leading provider of mission management and rideshare integration services, announced that together with Hypergiant SEOPS, it will be launching three CubeSats from the International Space Station (ISS) and Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus spacecraft in early January. The payloads will travel to the ISS through a NASA Commercial Resupply (CRS) mission aboard a SpaceX Dragon scheduled to launch atop a Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on December 4. More (Source: Business Wire - Dec 4)
SCIENCE AROUND THE PLANET USES IMAGES OF EARTH FROM THE SPACE STATION - Artificial lighting at night affects the behavior of urban wildlife, according to a recent study published in Nature Scientific Reports, which examined animals in the laboratory and the field. The researchers mapped light levels in the city of Chicago using publicly available images of Earth taken by astronauts from the International Space Station. The study is only one example of the wide variety of scientific research based on images taken by crew members from space using the Crew Earth Observations (CEO) facility. More (Source: Phys.org - Dec 4)
ISS SSTV DECEMBER 4-6 - Russian cosmonauts are expected to activate Slow Scan Television (SSTV) image transmissions on 145.800 MHz FM from the International Space Station on Wednesday to Friday, December 4, 5 and 6. This is the schedule for the planned activation of the MAI-75 SSTV activity from the ISS. More (Source: Southgatearc.org - Dec 4)
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)
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