UAE ANNOUNCES FALCON EYE 1 SATELLITE LAUNCH SET FOR JULY 6 - The satellite was built by Airbus Defence and Space and Thales Alenia and features a Hi-Res Imager, HiRI, imaging system with a ground resolution of 70 cm across 20 km. The satellite weighs less than 1,500 kg. The United Arab Emirates has announced that it will launch the Falcon Eye 1 satellite into orbit on Saturday, July 6, at the French Guiana Space Centre at 05:53 UAE time (01:53:03 GMT). More (Source: SatelliteProME.com - Jun 30)
SPACE JUNK OR SABOTAGE? SPACE CLEAN-UP DRONES COULD HAVE MILITARY IMPLICATIONS - China calls them scavengers, Russia calls them inspectors and the US calls them threats. The race is on to clean up the space junk orbiting above our heads. But fears are these trash collectors are really killer “gremlins”. Touted as space-junk clean-up drones, they also have the potential to grab vital GPS, communications and surveillance satellites — and send them hurtling towards the ground. And strange things are already happening in orbit. Analysts are asking: is it space junk, or sabotage? More (Source: NEWS.com.au - Jun 30)
ROCKET LAB CONDUCTS SPACEFLIGHT INC. RIDESHARE MISSION WITH ELECTRON LAUNCH - Rocket Lab launched its third Electron rocket launch of the year on Saturday. The seventh flight of Electron, named “Make It Rain,” carried seven satellites for Spaceflight Inc. Daily launch windows from 04:30 to 06:30 UTC began on June 27. However, the launch moved to Saturday (local time) after a 48 hour delay due to the need to conduct additional checks on ground equipment. Saturday’s attempt launched at the opening of the window with no issues. The mission name was inspired by Spaceflight Inc.’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington. Make It Rain was Spaceflight’s inaugural launch with Rocket Lab and the first of five such launches planned for this year. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Jun 29)
NASA ASTRONAUTS AND SATELLITES CAPTURE BREATHTAKING IMAGES OF AN AWAKENING VOLCANO FROM SPACE - On June 22, 2019, a volcano that had been dormant and inactive for nearly a century suddenly sprang to life. Raikoke volcano, more commonly known as Raikoke island, has only two recorded eruptions in history: in 1924 and in 1778. But around 4:00 AM local time, a vast plume of ash and volcanic gases erupted from its central crater. Although it's an isolated island that's part of a chain near the extremely active Kamchatka peninsula in eastern Asia, the new and unexpected volcanic activity was first discovered not by terrestrial monitoring, but by spaceborne satellites (and ISS astronauts) committed to observing Earth from space. While the arsenal of satellites that NASA has to monitor our planet are in constant danger of being defunded, this eruption highlights the essential need for remote Earth observing. More (Source: Forbes - Jun 28)
DANGEROUS DEBRIS FROM INDIA’S EXPLODED SATELLITE STILL ORBITING EARTH - When Indian authorities shot down a satellite with a missile on March 27, they estimated that the remains of the satellite would decay within 45 days. But that’s not quite what happened. Six weeks later — past that promised date — astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics are still tracking some 41 debris objects left out of 400 originally identified in Earth’s orbit. And for it all to burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere, it would take at least another “year or so,” as the Independent reports. More (Source: Futurism - Jun 28)
WATCH 3 'BIRDS' TAKE FLIGHT FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - Three small cubesats were released into low Earth orbit last week as part of a program that helps countries build their first satellites. For this mission, called BIRDS-3, the Japanese Small Satellite Orbital Deployer (JSSOD) ejected the tiny satellites outside the Kibo module of the International Space Station using a robotic arm on June 17. The batch of cubesats included Nepal's first satellite, NepaliSat-1 and Sri Lanka's first satellite, Raavana-1. The third cubesat, Uguisu, is from Japan. More (Source: Space.com - Jun 28)
THE NUMBER OF SATELLITES ORBITING EARTH COULD QUINTUPLE IN THE NEXT DECADE - As you read this there are about 2,000 satellites orbiting above our heads, and apart from an occasional glimpse in the night sky, they’re pretty much invisible. But they have become a huge part of everyday life on Earth. Want to find your way around? Tap a button and your phone talks to a constellation of GPS satellites. Those stunning images of Arctic sea ice and animations of ocean-churning hurricanes? Satellite-based, of course. These days, the view from orbit is so ubiquitous that most of us have probably forgotten a time when it wasn’t part of our perspective. More (Source: MIT Technology Review - Jun 27)
ROCKET LAB LAUNCHING 7 SATELLITES EARLY FRIDAY MORNING: WATCH LIVE - Spaceflight startup Rocket Lab will launch seven small satellites to orbit early Friday morning (June 28), and you can watch the action live. A Rocket Lab Electron booster is scheduled to lift off from the company's New Zealand launch site Friday, during a two-hour window that opens at 12:30 a.m. EDT (0430 GMT; 4:30 p.m. local New Zealand time). You can follow the liftoff live here at Space.com, courtesy of Rocket Lab, or directly via the company. Coverage will start 20 minutes before launch. More (Source: Space.com - Jun 27)
SATELLITE BUILT BY MICHIGAN TECH STUDENTS LAUNCHES INTO SPACE ABOARD FALCON HEAVY ROCKET - A satellite built by students at Michigan Technological University was one of 24 to launch into space aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket Tuesday, June 25. The school reports in a news release that the student-built nanosatellite Oculus-ASR will assist the federal government “in more efficient and accurate monitoring of the myriad of objects circling the globe.” More (Source: MLive.com - Jun 27)
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