SENATORS OPPOSE CUTTING FEDERAL FUNDING FOR SPACE STATION - Senators Ted Cruz and Bill Nelson say a timetable to transition the station to commercial operations in 2025 is premature, arbitrary, and political. The top Republican and Democratic senators on a key congressional subcommittee forcefully opposed on Wednesday a Trump administration proposal to end direct federal funding for the International Space Station (ISS) in 2025.   More
(Source: Eos - May 18)

OHIO STATE’S FIRST SATELLITE PREPARES FOR LAUNCH - Its name may playfully give homage to a 1980s video arcade game, but the technology on board The Ohio State University’s first satellite -- the CubeRRT -- could be vital for Earth science missions into the future. It is scheduled for launch on May 20. Project leader Joel Johnson, professor and chair of electrical and computer engineering (ECE) at Ohio State, said the CubeSat Radiometer Radio Frequency Interference Technology Validation mission (CubeRRT) contains advanced sensors for observing Earth’s environment from space.    More
(Source: The Ohio State University News - May 17)

ASTRONAUTS ARE TAKING A SPACEWALK OUTSIDE THE SPACE STATION TODAY: WATCH LIVE - Two NASA astronauts will work in space today (May 16) outside the International Space Station (ISS), and you can watch their 6.5-hour spacewalk, or extra-vehicular activity (EVA), live online. Expedition 55 flight engineers Drew Feustel and Ricky Arnold will exit the station through the Quest airlock at around 8:10 a.m. EDT (1210 GMT). NASA will provide live coverage starting at 6:30 a.m. EDT (1030 GMT), when the astronauts are getting ready for their work and putting on their spacesuits. You can watch it live here and on the Space.com homepage, courtesy of NASA TV.   More
(Source: Space.com - May 17)

A PIONEERING NASA SATELLITE JUST FELL TO EARTH AFTER 2 DECADES IN SPACE - On April 30, after more than 20 years in space, NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite re-entered and burned up in Earth's atmosphere. Decommissioned in 2012, the instrument spent its lifetime probing the environments of black holes and neutron stars in X-ray wavelengths, revealing new insight into these dense gravitational objects. "Observing these X-ray phenomena with precise high-resolution timing was RXTE's specialty," Jean Swank, an astrophysicist emeritus at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who served as the mission's project scientist until 2010, said in a statement. "During RXTE's run, no other observatory could provide these measurements."   More
(Source: Space.com - May 16)

HERE'S WHAT THE HAWAII VOLCANO ERUPTION LOOKS LIKE FROM SPACE - The first pictures are emerging of what Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano eruption looks like from space. Two astronauts aboard the International Space Station shared photos of their view of the massive smoke plume on Hawaii’s big island. The rolling eruptions of Kilauea, which have caused hundreds of earthquakes, forced thousands of people in the nearby communities to evacuate. “We hope those in the vicinity of the eruption can stay out of harm’s way,” tweeted Drew Feustel, a NASA flight engineer aboard the ISS, on Monday.   More
(Source: TIME - May 16)

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER LAUNCH: TWO NASA EDUCATIONAL CUBESATS - A small group of students recently got to experience a rare, spaceflight thrill: seeing if the tiny satellite, called a CubeSat, they designed and built not only survived a rocket launch to space but also successfully gathered and transmitted data once on orbit. The educational CubeSat missions were selected through the CubeSat Launch Initiative as part of the 14th installment of NASA's Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) missions.    More
(Source: Space Daily - May 15)

CHINA PREPARING TO LAUNCH CHANG’E-4 RELAY SATELLITE MAY 21 - China is set to launch a relay satellite to the second Earth-moon Lagrange point May 21, in a necessary precursor to the planned Chang’e-4 soft-landing on the lunar far side late in the year. Chang’e-4 is the backup to the Chang’e-3 mission which put a lander and rover on Mare Imbrium in late 2013. Following that success, the lunar craft have been repurposed for a pioneering landing on the moon’s far side. The lunar far side does not face the Earth as the moon’s orbital period matches its rotational period, thus requiring a relay satellite to facilitate communications.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - May 15)

EVER WONDERED WHAT’S FLOATING AROUND IN SPACE? - The night sky is full of stars, but it’s also full of garbage. Humans put lots of satellites up there — about 1,700 working spacecraft are in orbit around our planet — and not every piece of machinery comes right back when its job is done. Many keep speeding through the sky long after scientists have lost touch, leaving them liable to crash into one another and break into small pieces. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) estimates that there are about 23,000 pieces of space debris larger than 10 centimeters (or about four inches), about 500,000 larger than one centimeter, and about 100,000,000 larger than one millimeter.    More
(Source: Washington Post - May 14)

SPACEX DEBUTS NEW MODEL OF THE FALCON 9 ROCKET DESIGNED FOR ASTRONAUTS - SpaceX debuted a more reusable, higher-thrust model of the Falcon 9 rocket Friday, hauling Bangladesh’s first communications satellite into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast. The successful launch propelled SpaceX closer to launching astronauts for NASA, which will fly on the same “Block 5” model of the Falcon 9 rocket that flew Friday. Musk said the enhanced launch vehicle will also be easier to reuse, moving toward the California-based space transport company’s ambitious mission of drastically cutting launch costs and building settlements on other worlds.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 13)

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