BOEING AIMS TO LAUNCH UNPILOTED STARLINER TEST FLIGHT TO SPACE STATION IN DECEMBER - Boeing has set a new launch date for the first orbital flight of its new commercial crew vehicle that will soon begin ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The unpiloted CST-100 Starliner capsule is now scheduled to launch to the International Space Station on Dec. 17, said John Mulholland, Boeing's vice president of commercial programs, here at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS).    More
(Source: Space.com - Oct 14)

ALEXEI LEONOV, WORLD’S FIRST SPACEWALKER, DIES - Legendary cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, the first human to walk in space — an experience that almost killed him — and later the commander of the Russian Soyuz spacecraft that docked with a NASA Apollo capsule, symbolizing a historic thaw in the Cold War, has died after a long illness, the Russian space agency confirmed Friday. He was 85.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 12)

DECOMMISSIONED EARTH SCIENCE SATELLITE TO REMAIN IN ORBIT FOR CENTURIES - A U.S.-European satellite that completed its mission earlier this month has been decommissioned but will remain in orbit for as long as 1,000 years, far beyond existing orbital debris mitigation guidelines. Jason-2, a joint mission of NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the French space agency CNES and European weather agency Eumetsat, ended its mission to study sea-level height Oct. 1. The spacecraft, also known as Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM), launched in June 2008 for a mission originally expected to last three years.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Oct 11)

NASA LAUNCHES LONG-DELAYED ICON SPACE WEATHER SATELLITE TO STUDY EARTH'S IONOSPHERE - A long-awaited NASA mission designed to probe Earth's upper atmosphere has finally taken off after years of delays. The Ionospheric Connection Explorer (ICON) spacecraft launched tonight (Oct. 10) at 10:00 p.m. EDT (0200 GMT on Oct. 11) aboard a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket, which was released in midair from its carrier plane, a Stargazer L-1011. The aircraft had taken off about an hour and a half earlier from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station here.    More
(Source: Space.com - Oct 11)

SPACEX COMPETITOR CREATING ‘CELL TOWER’ IN SPACE - Hot off the success of co-founding a company to commercialize the space station, Charles Miller's next frontier is going head-to-head with SpaceX’s quest to provide constant cell connectivity in orbit. Miller is best known for the success of NanoRacks, a one-stop-shopping company for firms looking to make money in microgravity on the International Space Station. Working closely with NASA, NanoRacks runs experiments on the U.S. Harmony module and manages tiny satellites launched into space using a robotic Japanese arm.   More
(Source: Forbes - Oct 11)

NORTHROP GRUMMAN CARGO SHIP LAUNCH TO SPACE STATION DELAYED TO NOVEMBER - A Northrop Grumman Innovations Systems launch of a commercial cargo ship to the International Space Station for NASA on Oct. 21 will now liftoff on Nov. 2, NASA officials said. The NG-12 Cygnus spacecraft is scheduled to launch to the International Space Station aboard an Antares rocket (also built by Northrop Grumman) on Nov. 2 at 9:59 a.m. EDT (1359 GMT) from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, according to a NASA update. The mission, called CRS-12, will fly under Northrop Grumman's Commercial Resupply Services contract with NASA.   More
(Source: Space.com - Oct 11)

LAUNCH OF SATELLITE ABOARD AIRBORNE ROCKET PUSHED BACK - The launch of a satellite from a rocket dropped from the underbelly of an airplane off the coast of Florida has been delayed a day. Northrop Grumman had planned to launch the rocket Wednesday night but pushed it back to Thursday night because of poor weather conditions. The company says it will try again at 9:30 p.m. ET Thursday.   More
(Source: News 13 - Oct 10)

ROCKET LAB SWAPS SATELLITE CUSTOMERS FOR ELECTRON LAUNCH NEXT WEEK - The private spaceflight company Rocket Lab will loft a small satellite for the California-based firm Astro Digital from New Zealand next week in a last-minute mission swap for the commercial launch company A Rocket Lab Electron booster will launch no earlier than Monday (Oct. 14, October 15 NZDT) from the company's Launch Complex 1 on New Zealand's Māhia Peninsula. The flight, Rocket Lab's fifth of 2019, will carry a satellite for Astro Digital's Corvus Platform.   More
(Source: Space.com - Oct 10)

NORTHROP GRUMMAN’S SATELLITE SERVICER MEV-1, EUTELSAT SATELLITE, LAUNCH ON ILS PROTON - An International Launch Services Proton rocket carried Northrop Grumman’s first satellite-servicing spacecraft and a Eutelsat communications satellite to orbit Oct. 9. Proton lifted off at 6:18 a.m. Eastern from Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Its two passengers are scheduled to separate from the rocket almost 16 hours later in a supersynchronous transfer orbit. The launch is ILS’s first mission since 2017 and the first time the company has carried two commercial satellite on a single Proton.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Oct 9)

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