IT'S BUSINESS TIME: ROCKET LAB PREPARES FOR LAUNCH OUT OF NEW ZEALAND - New Zealand-based Rocket Lab will on Saturday make another bid to send its first fully commercial payload into orbit. Since testing began, the company has put four satellites into orbit, and from June 23 has a fortnight to get its first fully-fledged business mission -- aptly named "It's Business Time" -- off the ground. Rocket Lab will open the launch window from June 23 through July 6, with launch attempts scheduled for daily four-hour slots, beginning at 12:30pm NZST. The company will open a live-stream 15 minutes before launch, viewable on a launch day here and via Rocket Lab's YouTube channel.   More
(Source: ZDNet - Jun 22)

SOYUZ SPACECRAFT: BACKBONE OF RUSSIAN SPACE PROGRAM - The Soyuz is a type of spacecraft that the Soviet Union, and then Russia, has used for decades to launch cosmonauts into space. Today's Soyuz missions are best known for trips to the International Space Station; however, the spacecraft has a long operational history dating back to the 1960s, starting with its first uncrewed mission on Nov. 28, 1966. Over the years, Soyuz spacecraft have sent cosmonauts to several types of space stations — the Almaz series, Salyut series, Mir and today's ISS. Soyuz had two fatal missions. In 1967, the first crewed Soyuz mission, Soyuz 1, ended in tragedy due to a parachute failure that killed its sole cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jun 22)

WATCH AS A BORG-LIKE SATELLITE ZIPS BY THE ISS - Space isn't always so spacious. Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev gave us a reminder of the existence of space traffic with a video tweeted Wednesday showing a satellite flying by the ISS. The satellite shows up well against the background of Earth's blue water and white clouds. Artemyev zooms in to give a better look at the blocky machine. You even make out details of its solar panels. It looks like a mini version of a Borg cube spaceship from Star Trek.    More
(Source: CNET - Jun 21)

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION MISSION TO LAUNCH IN OCTOBER - Two decades ago, Nick Hague was a wide-eyed, 20-something Air Force second lieutenant from Kansas. Russian Alexey Ovchinin was another 20-something who had harbored cosmonaut dreams since he was 7 years old. Now, NASA astronaut Hague, 42, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Ovchinin, 46, are heading to the International Space Station together in October and will be aboard to observe the station’s 20th anniversary. While the men have no celebration planned yet, the significance of the station and how much their countries have achieved are not lost on them.   More
(Source: Houston Chronicle - Jun 21)

CHECKING CHINA'S POLLUTION BY SATELLITE - Air pollution has smothered China's cities in recent decades. In response, the Chinese government has implemented measures to clean up its skies. But are those policies effective? Now an innovative study co-authored by an MIT scholar shows that one of China's key antipollution laws is indeed working—but unevenly, with one particular set of polluters most readily adapting to it. The study examines a Chinese law that has required coal-fired power plants to significantly reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, a pollutant associated with respiratory illnesses, starting in July 2014.    More
(Source: Phys.org - Jun 19)

TRUMP CALLS FOR ESTABLISHMENT OF U.S. “SPACE FORCE” - Catching observers off guard, President Trump, in remarks before a National Space Council Meeting at the White House Monday, officially directed to Pentagon to establish a sixth branch of the military, a “space force,” to ensure American dominance on the high frontier. Trump also signed his administration’s third Space Policy Directive, calling for establishment of new protocols and procedures to manage and monitor the increasing numbers of satellites in low-Earth orbit and the tens of thousands of pieces of space junk and debris that pose an increasing threat to costly spacecraft.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 19)

4 OUT-OF-THIS-WORLD DADS CELEBRATE FATHER'S DAY IN SPACE - As dads around the world celebrate Father's Day today (June 17), four far-out fathers will spend the holiday floating 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the Earth at the International Space Station. NASA astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustel and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Prokopyev (four of the six crewmembers currently aboard the space station for Expedition 56) all have kids back on Earth.    More
(Source: Space.com - Jun 18)

ISRO CLEARS GSAT-11 FOR LAUNCH - The ISRO has cleared for launch GSAT-11, the satellite which was recalled from Kourou in French Guinea for thorough checks, after losing contact with its another satellite that was launched from Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.in March this year, an official said. The 5,700-kg GSAT-11 satellite was slated for launch on May 26 from Kourou, a site in South America which India uses to launch its heavy-weight satellite.    More
(Source: Times of India - Jun 18)

RUSSIA LAUNCHES SOYUZ-2.1B CARRIER ROCKET WITH GLONASS-M NAVIGATION SATELLITE - Russia launched a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket from the Plesetsk space center on Sunday to orbit a Glonass-M satellite, the Russian Defense Ministry said. "On Sunday, at 00:46 Moscow time [21:46 GMT]… the Space Forces of the Aerospace Forces successfully launched a middle-class Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with a navigation Glonass-M spacecraft," the ministry said in a statement. Hours later the ministry reported that the satellite reached the designated orbit.   More
(Source: Sputnik International - Jun 17)

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