NASA TELEVISION COVERAGE SET FOR CYGNUS RESUPPLY MISSION TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - NASA commercial cargo provider Northrop Grumman is scheduled to launch its next resupply mission to the International Space Station at 9:59 a.m. EDT Saturday, Nov. 2. NASA's prelaunch coverage will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website beginning Friday, Nov. 1. Loaded with around 8,200 pounds of research, crew supplies, and hardware, Northrop Grumman's 12th commercial resupply mission for the space station will launch on the company's Cygnus cargo spacecraft on an Antares rocket from Virginia Space's Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility.   More
(Source: PRNewswire - Oct 26)

ITTY-BITTY SATELLITES TAKE ON BIG-TIME SCIENCE MISSIONS - Tiny satellites are taking on a big-time role in space exploration. CubeSats are small, only about twice the size of a Rubik's Cube. As the name suggests, they're cube-shaped, 4 inches on each side, and weigh in at about 3 pounds. But with the miniaturization of electronics, it's become possible to pack a sophisticated mission into a tiny package.   More
(Source: NPR - Oct 24)

EPIC SPACE TIME-LAPSE CAPTURED FROM INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - A stunning time-lapse captured by the International Space Station shows the Earth, stars and even events like thunderstorms and wildfires. The time-lapse was created from a total of 400 photographs over the course of 11 minutes as the ISS traveled from Namibia toward the Red Sea, according to NASA. NASA astronaut Christina Koch, who tweets about her experiences on the International Space Station and recently partook in the first all-women spacewalk, captured the images.   More
(Source: Fox News - Oct 23)

ROCKET LAB AIMS TO DELIVER SMALL SATELLITES TO THE MOON AND BEYOND - Rocket Lab kicked off the International Astronautical Congress with the news that it’ll begin offering small satellite delivery service to orbits beyond low Earth orbit, where it currently operates — including delivering payloads all the way to the Moon. The longer-range service will be provided via its Photon spacecraft, which it’ll pair with a new additional stage to add range to the vehicle. The company expects to be able to begin serving customers with this new combined, longer range spacecraft possibly as early as Q4 2020.   More
(Source: TechCrunch - Oct 23)

AIR FORCE REVIEWING BOEING’S BID FOR WGS-11, PROJECTS SATELLITE COULD BE READY IN FIVE YEARS - The U.S. Air Force and Boeing are still negotiating the terms of a $605 million deal the company was awarded in April for the production of the 11th satellite of the Wideband Global Satellite Communication (WGS) constellation. The Air Force estimates the satellite could be ready for launch in about five years if an agreement is reached soon. One of the sticking points is the use of WGS-11 as a platform for hosted payloads.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Oct 21)

LONG MARCH 3B LAUNCHES TJSW-4 - China launched another secretive Tongxin Jishu Shiyan Weixing (TJSW -4) satellite on October 17. The launch took place at 15:21 UTC using the Long March-3B/G2 (Y57) ‘Chang Zheng-3B/G2’ launch vehicle from the LC3 launch complex. As with the previous launch of Communications Engineering Test Satellites, there is not much information regarding the satellite. When TJSW-1 was launched on September 12, 2015, Chinese authorities said then that the new satellite was a geostationary communications technology test satellite to be mainly used to conduct a test on Ka-band in broadband communication (frequencies between 27 and 40 GHz).   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Oct 20)

KOCH, MEIR CONCLUDE FIRST ALL-FEMALE SPACEWALK - Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir carried out history’s first all-female spacewalk Friday, floating outside the International Space Station and successfully installing a 230-pound replacement battery charger in the lab’s solar power system. The historic excursion was carried out in a blaze of public interest that rose all the way to the White House.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 20)

SPACEX MAY WANT TO LAUNCH 42,000 INTERNET SATELLITES — ABOUT 5 TIMES MORE SPACECRAFT THAN HUMANITY HAS EVER FLOWN - If SpaceX gets the go-ahead, the company's planned fleet of Starlink internet satellites could soon outnumber all the spacecraft humanity has ever launched by nearly five-to-one. That's according to Caleb Henry at Space News, who on Tuesday reported that SpaceX, founded by tech mogul Elon Musk, now seeks permission from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to fly an additional 30,000 Starlink satellites into space. Those tens of thousands would be additional to the nearly 12,000 spacecraft that SpaceX asked permission to launch from the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC).   More
(Source: Business Insider - Oct 19)

WHAT'S IT LIKE TO LIVE ON THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION? - When it comes to business travel, astronauts take the cake. The six space scientists and engineers who live and work in the International Space Station are traveling at a speed of five miles per second -- orbiting Earth once every 92 minutes. As far as we know, they don't earn frequent flyer miles, but they do get to spend an average of six months living and working with a multinational crew in what's arguably the coolest office in the solar system.    More
(Source: CNN - Oct 19)

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