SPACEX, TELESAT ACHIEVE REPEAT SUCCESS WITH MIDNIGHT-HOUR LAUNCH - For the second time in seven weeks, SpaceX, Telesat and SSL teamed up for a commercial satellite launch from Cape Canaveral early Monday, this time successfully deploying into orbit a high-power telecom payload developed in a joint venture with a Hong Kong-based company. The Telstar 18 VANTAGE communications satellite, also known as APSTAR 5C, was released into orbit by the Falcon 9’s second stage around 32 minutes after liftoff, which occurred at 12:45 a.m. EDT (0445 GMT) Monday. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 11)
JAXA POSTPONES STATION CARGO LAUNCH AS TYPHOON THREATENS GUAM TRACKING SITE - A typhoon forecast to move near a ground station in Guam on Monday has forced officials to postpone the launch of a Japanese HTV cargo ship loaded with more than 13,000 pounds of supplies, experiments and a replacement set of batteries for the International Space Station. Forecasters are monitoring Typhoon Mangkhut as it churns across the Pacific Ocean toward Guam and neighboring islands. A tracking station needed to receive data from the H-2B rocket carrying Japan’s HTV cargo ship into orbit is located in Guam, and officials announced Sunday that the mission would be postponed to wait for the storm to move away from the area. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 10)
SPACEX WILL LAUNCH TELSTAR COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE TONIGHT: HOW TO WATCH LIVE - SpaceX is prepared to loft a hefty communications satellite into orbit tonight (Sept. 9) and then attempt to land a rocket's first stage on a drone ship at sea. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Telstar 18 Vantage communications satellite, also known as Apstar 5C, from Cape Canaveral, Florida, during a launch window that starts at 11:28 p.m. EDT (0328 GMT on Sept. 10). You can watch it online here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX. In case of delays, the launch window stretches for 4 hours. More (Source: Space.com - Sep 10)
CHINA LAUNCHES SATELLITE TO MONITOR WORLD’S OCEANS - A Chinese marine observation satellite designed to monitor ocean pollution, measure sea temperatures and track ship movements successfully launched Friday on top of a Long March 2C rocket. The Haiyang 1C spacecraft lifted off at 0315 GMT Friday (11:15 p.m. EDT Thursday) from the Taiyuan space center in Shanxi province, located in northeastern China, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. Chinese officials declared the Long March 2C flight a success, marking the country’s 24th space launch of 2018, and extending the record for the highest number of Chinese launches in a year. More (Source: SpacdeFlight Now - Sep 10)
AIR FORCE RELEASES NEW TARGET DATES FOR UPCOMING MILITARY LAUNCHES - Managers have pushed back the next flight of United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4-Heavy rocket from a launch pad in California until no sooner than early December, and the first launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy for the U.S. Air Force has likely been delayed to some time early next year, officials said this week. Those missions using the heavy-lift rockets from the two top U.S. launch companies are set to take off amid a series of spacecraft deployments to upgrade the Air Force’s GPS navigation network, expand the military’s secure global communications capabilities, serve commercial customers, and test flights of new U.S.-built crew capsules. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 8)
JAPAN IS GO FOR MONDAY CARGO LAUNCH TO STATION - Japan’s seventh cargo mission (HTV-7) to the International Space Station is in the final stages of preparation for launch on Monday at 7:32 p.m. EDT. Mission controllers are monitoring the weather at the Tanegashima Space Center launch site while the Expedition 56 crew is preparing for its arrival early Friday. JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) HTV-7 is delivering a wide variety of science gear to support new research aboard the orbital lab. The new facilities will enable astronauts to observe physical processes at high temperatures, protein crystal growth and genetic alterations as well as a variety of other important space phenomena. More (Source: NASA - Sep 8)
HURRICANE FLORENCE LOOKS LIKE A GIANT COTTON BALL IN THIS ASTRONAUT PHOTO FROM SPACE - Hurricane Florence looks like a giant cotton ball in new photos snapped from the International Space Station by NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold. "#HurricaneFlorence strengthens in the early morning hours over the Atlantic," Arnold wrote on Twitter yesterday (Sept. 6) in a description of the two images. Florence is currently a Category 2 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of around 105 mph (169 km/h), according to the latest update from the National Hurricane Center (NHC), which is run by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). More (Source: Space.com - Sep 8)
A CHINESE SATELLITE JUST WATCHED ONESPACE LAUNCH A ROCKET, AND THE VIDEO IS AWESOME - You've likely never seen a rocket launch quite like this. When the Chinese commercial spaceflight startup OneSpace launched a rocket test flight today (Sept. 7), a satellite was watching. The result: one amazing video. The video shows OneSpace's OS-X1 rocket blast off from China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert during a suborbital test of the solid-fueled booster. It was captured by China's Jilin-1 satellite in orbit 332 miles (535 kilometers) above Earth and was shared on the country's social media site Weibo, according to China's GB Times. Twitter user Dafeng Cao then shared the video on Twitter, where it has been viewed more than 23,000 times. More (Source: Space.com - Sep 8)
'ACT OF ESPIONAGE': FRANCE ACCUSES RUSSIA OF TRYING TO SPY ON SATELLITE DATA - The French defence minister has accused Russia of attempting to intercept France’s satellite communications, calling it an act of espionage. Florence Parly said Russia tried to intercept transmissions and spy on a satellite providing secure communications for the French military last year. In a speech outlining France’s space policy and security issues, Parly said that the Athena-Fidus satellite, operated jointly by France and Italy, was approached “a bit too closely” by Russia’s Luch-Olymp craft, known for its advanced listening capacity. More (Source: The Guardian - Sep 8)
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