INDIA’S PSLV POISED FOR LAUNCH WITH 29 SATELLITES - An Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle is scheduled for liftoff Sunday night with an intelligence-gathering electronic surveillance satellite and 28 secondary payloads, including 20 Earth-imaging Dove nanosatellites for Planet, the U.S. company which criticized India’s anti-satellite test for generating space debris last week. Heading for three different orbits on a marathon mission that will conclude with the rocket’s fourth stage becoming a platform for experiments, the PSLV is set for launch at 0357 GMT Monday (11:57 p.m. EDT Sunday) from the Second Launch Pad at Satish Dhawan Space Center on Sriharikota Island, located on India’s east coast on the Bay of Bengal.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Apr 1)

US ASKED RUSSIA TO DELAY SOYUZ MS-13 JULY LAUNCH TO ISS FOR TWO WEEKS - SOURCE - The blastoff of the Soyuz MS-13 manned spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS), scheduled for 6 July, from the Baikonur space center, may be delayed for two weeks at the request of NASA, a source in the Russian rocket and space industry told Sputnik on Thursday. "The American side asked the Russian side to postpone the launch of the Soyuz MS-13 for two weeks - from 6 to 20 July, as well as to extend its flight for two months - from December 2019 until February 2020", the source said.   More
(Source: Space Daily - Mar 31)

US TRACKING OBJECTS FROM INDIAN ASAT TEST DEBRIS; INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION NOT AT RISK: PENTAGON - The US is tracking 250-270 objects of debris in the space generated due to India’s anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test in lower earth orbit, but the International Space Station or ISS is not at risk, the Pentagon said Friday. US Strategic Command’s Joint Force Space Component Command (JFSCC) said 250 pieces of debris associated with an Indian ASAT launch that occurred on Wednesday are being actively tracked. “Debris from the event is being actively monitored by the JFSCC, and conjunction notifications are being issued to satellite owners/operators in accordance with standard notification processes through the Department of Defense’s public space situational awareness sharing website HYPERLINK “http://www.space-track.org,” it said.   More
(Source: Hindustan Times - Mar 31)

RUSSIA REVEALS DETAILS ABOUT ITS FIRST 'PREDATOR' SATELLITE - While the US expresses concern about Moscow developing new military satellites, Russian space companies have come up with peaceful and actually globally useful inventions in the sphere of satellite technologies. State-funded firm Russian Space Systems has presented the concept and characteristics of their latest development - a satellite capable of devouring the remains of its own kind littering the Earth's orbit.   More
(Source: Space Daily - Mar 30)

WHY SATELLITE MEGA-CONSTELLATIONS ARE A THREAT TO THE FUTURE OF SPACE - When India shot down one of its own satellites with a missile this week, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine was not impressed. “Creating debris fields intentionally is wrong. ... If we wreck space, we’re not getting it back,” he said. He was referring to the growing problem of space junk: dead satellites, leftover rockets, and debris from previous collisions that threaten operating satellites, human spaceflight, and even the International Space Station. It’s still too early to have good enough data on the debris cloud from India’s anti-satellite test, and tracking firms will be monitoring the area closely.   More
(Source: MIT Technology Review - Mar 30)

SPACEWALKING ASTRONAUTS REPLACE OLD BATTERIES ON SPACE STATION - NASA astronauts Nick Hague and Christina Koch successfully completed a spacewalk at the International Space Station today to continue an ongoing power upgrade at the orbiting lab. The spacewalkers spent 6 hours and 45 minutes working to replace a set of old nickel-hydrogen batteries with new lithium-ion batteries located on the station's P4 truss, where one of the station's solar arrays is located. These batteries hold the charge generated by the solar arrays and power the space station when it's not in direct sunlight.    More
(Source: Space.com - Mar 30)

INDIA SAYS ITS ANTI-SATELLITE WEAPON TEST CREATED MINIMAL SPACE DEBRIS. IS THAT TRUE? - Just weeks before election season starts in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the nation completed a successful test-fire of its first anti-satellite launch missile, dubbed "Mission Shakti," on Wednesday (March 27). The event sparked a global conversation about space policy, politics and the militarization of space in the hours that followed, as well as speculation about whether that type of test could create dangerous space debris. This achievement by India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DDRO) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) makes it only the fourth country to ever launch an anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon.    More
(Source: Space.com - Mar 29)

ROCKET LAB LAUNCHES EXPERIMENTAL SATELLITE FOR DARPA - Rocket Lab's first launch of 2019 is in the books. The spaceflight startup's Electron rocket rose off a pad on New Zealand's Māhia Peninsula today (March 28) at 7:27 p.m. EDT (2327 GMT; 12:27 p.m. local New Zealand time on March 29). About 53 minutes after liftoff, the booster delivered to orbit the 330-lb. (150 kilograms) Radio Frequency Risk Reduction Deployment Demonstration (R3D2) spacecraft, an experimental satellite that will be operated by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).   More
(Source: Space.com - Mar 29)

CHINESE STARTUP ONESPACE FAILS IN FIRST ORBITAL LAUNCH ATTEMPT - A solid-fueled rocket launched Wednesday by the Chinese startup OneSpace flew off course shortly after liftoff, the second time in five months one of China’s new space companies failed in a bid to become the country’s first private firm to place a spacecraft into orbit. The four-stage OS-M rocket, sometimes called the OS-M1, lifted off from the Jiuquan space center in northwest China at 1039 GMT (5:39 a.m. EDT) Wednesday, but video recorded by spectators near the launch pad showed the vehicle veering off course around a minute after liftoff, shortly after first stage separation and second stage ignition.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Mar 29)

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