WHAT IT’S LIKE TO FLY A BILLION-DOLLAR SATELLITE ON THE US AIR FORCE’S LARGEST PLANE - The California heat is stifling as we climb the 14-foot ladder into the passenger compartment of the C-5 Galaxy, the largest plane flown by the US Air Force. I had been told to expect a cold flight, and wore four layers of clothing. Now, sweat drips down my face. Everyone wears ear protection to drown out the engulfing noise of the four van-size jet engines hanging from the wings. A passing airman’s backpack bears a patch with the slogan “Embrace the Suck.” Good advice. This flight is not built to suit passengers. Below, in the belly of the aircraft, sits 35 tons (32 metric tons) of equipment—an ultra-secure military communications satellite... More (Source: Quartz - Aug 14)
HEAVENS TO SHINE WITH NEW ‘STAR’ AS FIRST SPACE SCULPTURE PREPARES FOR LAUNCH - Look up into the night sky towards the end of October and you may catch sight of a brand new ‘star’ twinkling in the cosmos. The tiny speck of light is not the offspring of a seething nebula, but the world’s first space sculpture, which will orbit the Earth for three weeks this autumn. The length of a football field, and the shape of an elongated diamond, the ‘Orbital Reflector’ artwork is the brainchild of US artist Trevor Paglen and will be launched on board on one of Elon Musk’s SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets. More (Source: Telegraph.co.uk - Aug 13)
SATELLITE MEASUREMENTS OF THE EARTH'S MAGNETOSPHERE PROMISE BETTER SPACE WEATHER FORECASTS - Earth is constantly being hammered by charged particles emitted by the sun with enough power to make life on Earth almost impossible. Life is only possible because Earth's magnetic field traps and deflects these particles, preventing the vast majority of them from ever reaching the planet's surface. The trapped particles bounce back and forth between the North and South poles in complex, ever-changing patterns that are also influenced by intricate and shifting electric fields. When the Van Allen radiation belts in which they travel dip into the atmosphere near the poles, they create the Northern (and Southern) lights. Bursts of these particles can also damage satellites and sensitive equipment on the ground. More (Source: Phys.org - Aug 13)
CHINA’S ‘HEAVENLY PALACE’ SPACE STATION TO BE LAUNCHED IN 2022 - China’s space station, the Tiangong, which means ‘heavenly palace’, is going to be launched in 2022 and expected to stand up to the same standards as the International Space Station in addition to welcoming foreign astronauts. The Tiangong will be larger than the Russian Mir and will consist of a core module and two laboratory cabins, the latter which will have pressurized environments which will allow the astronauts to conduct free-fall and microgravity experiments. More (Source: TechTheLead - Aug 12)
ON 'MISSION TO TOUCH THE SUN,' PARKER SOLAR PROBE HAS LAUNCHED - umanity's first visit to a star began this weekend. NASA's Parker Solar Probe will explore the sun's atmosphere in a mission that launched early Sunday. This is the agency's first mission to the sun and its outermost atmosphere, the corona. After being delayed on Saturday, the probe successfully launched at 3:31 a.m. ET Sunday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket, one of the world's most powerful rockets. Although the probe itself is about the size of a car, a powerful rocket is needed to escape Earth's orbit, change direction and reach the sun. More (Source: CNN - Aug 12)
A NEW WAVE OF SATELLITES IN ORBIT: CHEAP AND TINY, WITH SHORT LIFESPANS - It’s one of the most recognizable images in aerospace: Highly specialized workers clad in gowns, hair nets and shoe coverings crawl over a one-of-a-kind satellite the size of a school bus. The months-long process is so delicate that even workers’ metal rings must be covered with a translucent tape to prevent static transfer. Contrast that with how things are done at Planet Labs Inc. in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood. More (Source: Los Angeles Times - Aug 9)
INDONESIAN COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE DEPLOYED IN ORBIT BY SPACEX - Keeping up a run of middle-of-the-night launches from Cape Canaveral, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket powered by a recycled first stage booster climbed into orbit early Tuesday with the Indonesian Merah Putih communications satellite. The Falcon 9’s first stage dropped out of the night sky a few minutes later over the Atlantic Ocean, descending to a pinpoint landing on SpaceX’s drone ship “Of Course I Still Love” parked a few hundred miles east of Cape Canaveral. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 8)
GOT IDEAS FOR AN AGING SPACE STATION? NASA WANTS TO HEAR THEM - For 18 years, the International Space Station, the orbiting zenith of global scientific cooperation, has hosted a continuous human presence and thousands of science experiments in its microgravity environment. But the $100 billion laboratory won’t last forever and President Donald Trump’s proposal to withdraw federal funding in 2025 has jolted a discussion about its future. The idea of ending the U.S. taxpayer’s role—the station costs more than $3 billion annually in a partnership with Russia, Europe, Canada and Japan—has stirred congressional opposition. It also raises a perplexing question: Who might run the place if the U.S. government doesn’t? More (Source: Bloomberg - Aug 7)
LATER THIS YEAR, A SPACEX FALCON 9 ROCKET WILL LAUNCH ITS BIGGEST BATCH OF SATELLITES YET - Later this year, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch more than 70 satellites into orbit — the largest batch of satellites sent into space at one time from one of the company’s vehicles or of any other US rocket company. Dubbed the SSO-A mission, the flight is scheduled to take off from Vandenberg Air Force in California in late 2018, though an exact date has yet to be determined. The epic satellite rideshare was coordinated and brokered by Spaceflight Industries — a company dedicated to finding launch “real estate” for small satellites that need to get into space. More (Source: The Verge - Aug 7)
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