THE LATEST: GOV. BROWN SAYS CALIFORNIA WILL LAUNCH SATELLITE - California Gov. Jerry Brown says the state plans to launch its "own damn satellite" into orbit to address climate change. The man famously dubbed "Gov. Moonbeam" said Friday the state is working with a San Francisco-based earth imaging company on a satellite to track climate-change causing pollutants. Brown said the company Planet Labs has launched 150 satellites. The Democratic governor announced the project at a climate change summit in San Francisco he organized.   More
(Source: ABC News - Sep 16)

DEFENSE GIANTS BET BIG ON SMALL SATELLITES - Major U.S. defense contractors are working to reinvent their satellite businesses to include satellites no larger than a microwave oven, as they try to keep pace with a new crop of commercial technology companies leading a wave of disruption in the space industry. Their efforts are spearheading new investments in so-called cube-sat technology, as the U.S. government looks for alternatives to the expensive, bus-sized satellites it has relied on for decades.   More
(Source: Washington Post - Sep 16)

FINAL DELTA 2 ROCKET LAUNCHES $1 BILLION ICE PROBE - Ending a 30-year run as one of America's most successful rockets, a United Launch Alliance's 155th and final Delta 2 roared to life for the last time Saturday carrying a $1 billion NASA satellite into orbit to measure the thickness and extent of polar ice sheets, changes in sea level and the height of forest canopies and clouds. The ICESat-2 satellite -- the acronym stands for Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite 2 -- is the most sophisticated ice-monitoring spacecraft ever launched, equipped with advanced electronics and a laser that will fire 10,000 pulses per second at the ground below and then capture the faint reflections.   More
(Source: CBS News - Sep 15)

JAPAN DELAYS LAUNCH OF NEW SPACE STATION CARGO SHIP AGAIN - The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) unexpectedly delayed a vital cargo launch to the International Space Station just an hour before the rocket was scheduled to lift off. The agency has not yet provided a new launch date or an explanation for the delay. The mission had already been postponed from a liftoff originally scheduled for Sept. 10 (Sept. 11 local time) by a typhoon near the launch site at Tanegashima Space Center in southern Japan. After the weather delays, the agency calculated a range of launch windows lasting through the end of October.   More
(Source: Space.com - Sep 15)

SCIENTISTS EAGER TO RENEW GLOBAL ICE MEASUREMENTS WITH ICESAT 2 MISSION - The satellite awaiting launch early Saturday from California aboard the final flight of the venerable Delta 2 rocket should allow scientists to more precisely track changes in our planet’s ice sheets, using six green laser beams to chart the height and slope of polar ice and glaciers, providing a key input into climate change research. Researchers who plan to analyze data from the new satellite say a better understanding of Earth’s ice will help them learn about our planet’s changing climate, and help predict how melting ice will contribute to rising sea levels.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 15)

STUDENT-LAUNCHED SATELLITE SUCCESSFULLY ORBITS EARTH - Since its successful launch and deployment earlier this year, the Brown Space Engineering’s EQUiSat cube satellite has been continuously transmitting information down to Providence. A team of students at BSE has been collaborating on the project since its conception nearly eight years ago. As the team receives and records data from EQUiSat, BSE is already in the preliminary stages of preparing their next big cube satellite project, which is tentatively set for mid-2021, said current Project Manager Jacob Leiken ’20.   More
(Source: The Brown Daily Herald - Sep 14)

RUSSIAN SPACE AGENCY TO NASA: INVESTIGATION INTO SPACE STATION LEAK IS UNDER WAY - Two weeks after astronauts and cosmonauts repaired an air leak at the International Space Station, investigators are still trying to figure out how the tiny hole got there. According to a new joint statement from NASA and Roscosmos, Russia's federal space agency, Roscosmos Director Dmitry Rogozin invited NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine to meet in a teleconference on Wednesday (Sept. 12) to discuss the investigation.   More
(Source: Space.com - Sep 14)

NASA TO LAUNCH SATELLITE TRACKING EARTH'S MELTING ICE ON SATURDAY - NASA is set to launch its Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2, or ICESat-2 — that will track Earth's melting poles and disappearing sea ice — on Saturday, 15 September. The satellite with a three-year mission is scheduled to launch at 6.16 pm IST on Saturday, with liftoff aboard a Satellite Delta II rocket from the Space Launch Complex-2 (SLC-2), the US space agency said in a blog post late on Tuesday, 11 September.   More
(Source: Firstpost - Sep 13)

HURRICANE FLORENCE: HOW SATELLITES ARE TRACKING THE MONSTER STORM FROM SPACE - As Hurricane Florence makes its way toward the U.S. East Coast, several satellites are monitoring the dangerous storm system with a variety of instruments. From tracking wind speeds, rainfall and temperatures to capturing breathtaking views of the spinning monstrosity of a storm, a fleet of satellites run by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is providing weather forecasters with the tools they need to keep people safe.   More
(Source: Space.com - Sep 13)

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