PROTON ROCKET, RUSSIAN-GERMAN ASTRONOMY SATELLITE ARRIVE AT LAUNCH PAD - A rocket-transporting railroad car ferried a Proton booster to its launch pad Friday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for final checkouts and testing before the vehicle’s scheduled June 21 liftoff with the Russian-German Spektr-RG X-ray telescope. The Proton rocket began the trip to the Complex 81 launch pad Friday at around 6:30 a.m. local time in Kazakhstan. After pulling up to the pad, a hydraulic lift raised the rocket vertical, and ground crews moved a mobile gantry around the launcher to provide access for workers to complete inspections, testing and closeouts before next week’s launch.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 17)

SPACE WEATHER SATELLITES SET TO LAUNCH - On June 24, the US and Taiwan are scheduled to launch a coterie of six small satellites that will orbit tropical latitudes. The satellites, a joint project of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Taiwan National Space Agency, will provide more frequent high-resolution data about temperature, pressure, and water vapor, improving tropical-storm forecasts. The project, called COSMIC-2 in the US and FORMOSAT-7 in Taiwan, will also provide an unprecedented level of detail about the planet’s ionosphere.    More
(Source: Chemical & Engineering News - Jun 16)

SATELLITES EQUIPPED WITH A TETHER WOULD BE ABLE TO DE-ORBIT THEMSELVES AT THE END OF THEIR LIFE - There’s no denying it, we are facing an orbital debris problem! As of January 2019, the ESA’s Space Debris Office estimates that there are at least 34,000 pieces of large debris in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) – a combination of dead satellites, spent rocket stages, and other assorted bits of space junk. And with thousands of satellites scheduled to be launched in the next decade, that problem is only going to get worse. This is a situation that cries out for solutions, especially when you consider the plans to commercialize LEO and start sending crewed missions to deep space in the coming years.   More
(Source: Universe Today - Jun 16)

HAM RADIO SATELLITES TO DEPLOY FROM ISS - Three BIRDS-3 satellites with Amateur Radio payloads are scheduled to be deployed from the International Space Station on Monday, June 17. The BIRDS-3 constellation includes CubeSats from three countries: They are Nepal’s first satellite, NepaliSat-1; Uguisu from Japan, and Sri Lanka’s first satellite, Raavana-1.   More
(Source: ARRL - Jun 15)

SPACE IS POLLUTED BY JUNK…AND IT’S GETTING WORSE - The major shift from state to commercial space programs, as well as a sharp rise in the number of upcoming launches, raises concerns about our efforts to manage the problem. n 2016, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Copernicus Sentinel-1A satellite experienced a sudden dip in power and a physical jolt while orbiting 700 kilometers above Earth.The culprit turned out to be a millimeter-sized speck of space debris that hit one of the solar panels. It left a 40-centimeter dent.   More
(Source: EOS - Jun 14)

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIMENTS SELECTED TO FLY ON CHINESE SPACE STATION - Six experiments have been granted a place aboard to the future Chinese Space Station through a joint international cooperation initiative, with three more receiving conditional acceptance. The results of the selection process were announced jointly Wednesday by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) on the sidelines of the 62nd session of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in Vienna.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Jun 14)

INDIA PLANS TO HAVE ITS OWN SPACE STATION - India plans to have its own space station in the future and conduct separate missions to study the Sun and Venus, it said on Thursday, as the nation moves to bolster its status as a leader in space technologies and inspire the young minds to take an interest in scientific fields. India’s space agency said today that it will begin working on its space station following its first manned mission to space, called Gaganyaan (which means “space vehicle” in Sanskrit), in 2022 — just in time to commemorate 75 years of the country’s independence from Britain.   More
(Source: TechCrunch - Jun 14)

NEPAL’S FIRST SATELLITE ‘NEPALISAT-1’ TO TRAVEL AROUND EARTH FROM JUNE 17 - The NepaliSat-1, the Nepal’s first satellite launched into space by Japan’s Kyushu Institute of Technology on April 17 is to go through the Earth’s orbit from June 17. The nano-satellite weighing 1.3 kilos was launched from the Virginia Space’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in the United States. It has been in the International Space Station since one and half month and will be released into the Earth’s orbit on June 17.   More
(Source: Nepal 24 hours - Jun 14)

WORLD CUP 2019: ASTRONAUT CHEERS ON US WOMEN'S SOCCER TEAM FROM SPACE - Talk about nosebleed seats. A U.S. astronaut had the perfect view of the French stadium hosting the FIFA Women's World Cup — although the action may be a little bit hard to see from about 250 miles (400 kilometers) above Earth's surface. "Finally made it to a @FIFAWWC in person," Anne McClain, a member of Expedition 59, tweeted on Tuesday (June 11), along with two pictures showing the cloudy view beneath the International Space Station. Red circles carefully mark Reims, France, the location of the epic match.    More
(Source: Space.com - Jun 13)

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