LIFE ON THE SPACE STATION IS ABOUT TO GET REALLY WEIRD AND LONELY - Right now, there are six astronauts aboard the International Space Station, floating 408km above our heads. But soon things could be about to get a lot lonelier up there. Delays in building new spacecraft to get astronauts into space mean that the next trio of astronauts set to join the ISS in April 2020 are facing the possibility of being the space station’s lone occupants for six months. More (Source: Wired.co.uk - Nov 15)
TWO CHINESE SATELLITE LAUNCHERS LIFT OFF THREE HOURS APART - Chinese rockets performed two satellite delivery missions in a three-hour span Wednesday, carrying a commercial Earth-imaging satellite and five mysterious surveillance payloads into orbit. The launches originated from two separate spaceports in northern China, using a light-class solid-fueled Kuaizhou 1A launcher and a liquid-fueled Long March 6 rocket, according to Chinese state media reports. The back-to-back launches carried different missions into orbit, and were not originally planned to occur on the same day. Officials aborted a Kuaizhou 1A launch attempt last month for unspecified technical reasons. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Nov 14)
SPACEX EXECUTES GROUND-BASED TEST FIRING FOR CREW DRAGON’S LAUNCH ESCAPE SYSTEM - SpaceX went the distance today with a static-fire test of its Crew Dragon space taxi’s launch escape system — the same type of test that ended in a costly explosion when it was conducted in April. A photo released after the firing shows the Crew Dragon’s SuperDraco thrusters blazing away on the test stand at SpaceX’s Florida facility. The full-duration firing brings the company one step closer to flying NASA astronauts to the International Space Station next year. More (Source: GeekWire - Nov 14)
RUSSIAN SCIENTISTS PROPOSE CREATION OF SEPARATE ISS MODULE FOR SPORTS, MEDICINE - The Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Science (IBMP RAS) considers it necessary to create a special module for sports and medical experiments at the International Space Station (ISS), IBMP deputy chief designer Yevgenia Yarmanova said. "If we recall the plans for the Russian segment of the ISS, initially it would have included two Science Power Modules (SPM). More (Source: Space Daily - Nov 12)
SPACEX SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHES FALCON 9 ROCKET WITH 60 SATELLITES ON BOARD - The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 9:56 a.m. Monday, with 60 Starlink satellites on board. The satellites will beam internet service to hard-to-access places across the world, according to SpaceX, which was founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Elon Musk. It was the fourth launch for the Falcon 9, and the first time that SpaceX reused the tip of the rocket known as the fairing. SpaceX deployed a first round of Starlink satellites in May. More (Source: Fox Business - Nov 11)
HOW TO TRACK AND PHOTOGRAPH SECRET SPACECRAFT - Earlier this year, Dutch science journalist and satellite tracker Ralf Vandebergh successfully snagged detailed images of the X-37B, the Air Force’s secret spaceplane that recently landed, in low orbit using a hand-trafficking method—catching sight of the vehicle and guiding his 10-inch reflector telescope manually—and video-based imaging techniques. Want to capture a satellite, booster rocket, or the ISS in action? Follow Vandebergh’s lead. More (Source: Popular Mechanics - Nov 11)
SPACEX READIES UPGRADED STARLINK SATELLITES FOR LAUNCH - New satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink broadband network set for launch Monday from Cape Canaveral will debut several performance and safety upgrades, but they do not include changes to reduce the brightness of the satellites, a modification SpaceX says it will introduce on future Starlink craft to mitigate their impacts on ground-based astronomy. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Nov 11)
HIBER STARTS COMMERCIAL IOT TRIALS ON GLOBAL SCALE - Hiber‘s Internet of Things (IoT) network is now live, following the launch of its first two nanosatellites in late 2018. After three years of product development, the commercial launch of the fully automated end-to-end service known as Hiberband, marks the latest step for Hiber, where it will see its first customers trialling the technology. More (Source: Via Satellite - Nov 10)
CHEAP IOT SATELLITE NETWORK GETS APPROVAL - Space communications start-up Swarm Technologies will begin delivering commercial, bi-directional Internet of Things (IoT) data early next year, according to the company, which has just received its regulatory go-ahead to launch its satellites and transmit. “Swarm will begin rolling out its commercial, two-way data offerings in early 2020,” Sara Spangelo, co-founder and CEO told me in a recent e-mail. The company aims to deploy 150 satellites before the end of 2020, she says. More (Source: Network World - Nov 8)
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