ASTRONAUTS INSTALL NEW BATTERIES OUTSIDE THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - Two NASA astronauts ventured outside the 20-year-old International Space Station to replace aging nickel-hydrogen batteries with fresh lithium-ion units. Floating outside the Quest airlock to begin the 6.5-hour-long U.S. EVA-52 was NASA’s Anne McClain and Nick Hague, both Expedition 59 flight engineers. Their task was to make their way to the P4 truss segment located on the port side of the outpost before beginning work to install three adapter plates and shuffle several batteries. More (Source: SpaceFlight Insider - Mar 24)
INDIA LAUNCHING ELECTRONIC INTELLIGENCE SATELLITE ON APRIL 1 - ndia on April 1 will launch an electronic intelligence satellite Emisat for the Defence Research Development Organisation (DRDO) along with 28 third party satellites and also demonstrate its new technologies like three different orbits with a new variant of PSLV rocket, ISRO said on Saturday. According to Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), a new variant of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket will first put the 436 kg Emisat into a 749 km orbit. After that, the rocket will be brought down to put into orbit the 28 satellites at an altitude of 504 km. More (Source: Economic Times - Mar 24)
TETHERS UNLIMITED SAYS TWO-WAY RADIO FOR SMALL SATELLITES HAS ACED FIRST ORBITAL TEST - Tethers Unlimited weathered a wave of bad news over the winter, but now some good news has bloomed. The company, headquartered in Bothell, Wash., reports that its SWIFT-SLX S-band radio has been successfully operated in orbit. The compact software-defined radio provided two-way communications between Harris Corp.’s first small satellite, known as HSAT-1, and the satellite’s ground operators, Tethers Unlimited said this week in a news release. HSAT was launched last November by India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, with Seattle-based Spaceflight handling logistical support. More (Source: GeekWire - Mar 23)
VEGA ROCKET LAUNCHES EARTH-WATCHING PRISMA SATELLITE FOR ITALY - A European Vega rocket carried a new Earth-observation satellite into orbit for the Italian Space Agency late Thursday (March 21), lighting up the nighttime sky over its French Guiana launch site. The PRISMA Earth observation satellite lifted off at 9:50 p.m. EDT (0150 March 22 GMT) from the South America's Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. The satellite will operate in a sun-synchronous orbit, meaning that it circles the Earth in such a way that the sun is always in the same position as the satellite takes pictures of the planet below. More (Source: Space.com - Mar 22)
STUNNING SATELLITE PHOTO SHOWS WHAT THE VERNAL EQUINOX LOOKED LIKE FROM 22,300 MILES AWAY - One picture makes it easy to define an equinox: it’s when the Earth is as different as night and day. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) captured the the glory of that fleeting moment on Wednesday in a photo taken by one of its Geostationary and Polar-Orbiting Weather Satellites. The GOES-16, as it's known, is positioned approximately 22,300 miles away from Earth and is lined up at 75.2 W longitude and the equator. The distance is far enough away to provide the breathtaking "full-disk" imagery of our planet. More (Source: AccuWeather.com - Mar 22)
NASA SCHEDULES ITS FIRST WOMEN-ONLY SPACEWALK - U.S. space agency NASA will send astronauts Anne McClain, 39, and Christina Koch, 40, on NASA's first women-only spacewalk on March 29. The all-female spacewalk will be supported by a female ground crew: Mary Lawrence will serve as lead flight director and Jackie Kagey will be lead spacewalk flight controller at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston. It's a fitting milestone for Women's History Month, although NASA says the timing is coincidental. More (Source: Space Daily - Mar 22)
MITIGATING THE LOSS OF SATELLITE DATA BY USING CUBESAT REMOTE SENSING TECHNOLOGY - Advanced infrared and microwave sounding systems, usually onboard traditional polar-orbiting satellites, provide atmospheric sounding information critical for nowcasting and weather forecasting through data assimilation in numerical weather prediction models. This means weather forecasts have become increasingly dependent on satellite observations. But what if we lose one or more of these instruments? How do we mitigate the data gap? More (Source: Phys.org - Mar 21)
ONEWEB STARTS TO MASS-PRODUCE SATELLITES IN FLORIDA - In the shiny white laboratory that is OneWeb Satellites' new Florida manufacturing plant, a historic first happened this week: The first few mass-produced satellites ever to be built in Florida started coming together. Workers in lab coats and hairnets pushed solar panels into cabinets where bright lights checked for fractures. Satellite frames covered in gold-colored film, about the size of a washing machine, neared the final radio-frequency test chambers. More (Source: UPI - Mar 20)
US MILITARY WANTS $300M TO START TESTING SATELLITE-MOUNTED LASERS AND ‘PARTICLE BEAMS’ - The U.S. military is looking to develop and test more weapons it can blast into space to fire at targets on the surface of the earth. According to Defense One, the first plan on the agenda is a space laser that could be used to blow up enemy missiles "coming off the launch pad". A study to see if this is feasible should wrap up within six months, but only takes up $15m (£11m) of the total budget. More (Source: Fox News - Mar 20)
Previous Next
