HEFTY HISPASAT SATELLITE RIDES SPACEX ROCKET INTO ORBIT - A Spanish-owned, U.S.-built commercial communications satellite climbed into orbit early Tuesday from Cape Canaveral on the 50th flight of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, launching on a 15-year mission to relay video, data and broadband signals across the Americas, Europe and North Africa. Heading for a post in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator, the Hispasat 30W-6 satellite took off at 12:33 a.m. EST (0533 GMT) Tuesday from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Mar 6)

SPACEX READY TO TRY AGAIN WITH SPANISH SATELLITE LAUNCH - SpaceX will try once again to launch a Spanish satellite into space from Florida early Tuesday morning. The Elon Musk-led company had to delay its mission in late February because SpaceX officials wanted to test the Falcon 9 rocket’s payload fairing. The launch is planned for 12:33 a.m. Tuesday. The rocket will carry with it a satellite for the 25-year-old Spanish communications operator Hispasat.   More
(Source: Orlando Sentinel - Mar 6)

CHINA'S TIANGONG-1 SPACE STATION WILL CRASH TO EARTH WITHIN WEEKS - Experts say it is impossible to plot where module will re-enter the atmosphere, but the chance is higher in parts of Europe, US, Australia and New Zealand. China’s first space station is expected to come crashing down to Earth within weeks, but scientists have not been able to predict where the 8.5-tonne module will hit. The US-funded Aerospace Corporation estimates Tiangong-1 will re-enter the atmosphere during the first week of April, give or take a week. The European Space Agency says the module will come down between 24 March and 19 April.   More
(Source: The Guardian - Mar 6)

NASA PLANS TO LAUNCH ITS EXOPLANET-SEEKING SATELLITE TESS IN LESS THAN 2 MONTHS - Astrobiology, which is the fascinating branch of space sciences that deal with formulating theories and conducting research solely related to life beyond our planet, has received generous support from NASA with the recent announcement of an ambitious 2-year satellite observatory project. Named the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, the spacecraft is now housed at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with the aim of discovering and collecting data on hopefully thousands of new exoplanets.   More
(Source: Interesting Engineering - Mar 5)

SPACEX LAUNCH WITH SPANISH SATELLITE PLANNED FOR EARLY TUESDAY - SpaceX aims to launch its next mission, the 50th flight of a Falcon 9 rocket, just after midnight Tuesday from Cape Canaveral with a commercial communications satellite for Hispasat. The two-hour launch window opens at 12:33 a.m. EST (0533 GMT). The Hispasat 30W-6 telecom craft will ride a 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket from the Complex 40 launch pad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The commercial mission was supposed to lift off last month, but SpaceX delayed the flight to complete additional testing on a pressurization system on the Falcon 9’s payload fairing, the shroud that will shield the Hispasat 30W-6 satellite during the first few minutes of launch.   More
(Source: SpaceFlith Now - Mar 5)

CHINA'S BIG SPACE LAB MAY FALL TO EARTH THIS MONTH - The European Space Agency (ESA) has issued a new re-entry forecast for China's Tiangong-1 space lab. The 8.5-ton spacecraft is now expected to fall into Earth's atmosphere between March 24 and April 19, though ESA officials stressed that this is a rough estimate. "Re-entry will take place anywhere between 43 degrees north and 43 degrees south (e.g. Spain, France, Portugal, Greece, etc.)" latitude, officials with the Space Debris Office at ESA’s European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, wrote in an update last week.   More
(Source: Space.com - Mar 3)

A FLOATING 'BRAIN' WILL ASSIST ASTRONAUTS ABOARD THE SPACE STATION - The crew on board the International Space Station (ISS) will soon welcome a new member — one that is 3D-printed from metal and plastic and is described by its creators as "a kind of flying brain." It goes by the name CIMON, short for "Crew Interactive Mobile Companion." Built by the aerospace design company Airbus in collaboration with IBM, CIMON houses artificial intelligence (AI) in an autonomous, spherical body that would "float" in the space station's microgravity environment, with a screen that can display data readouts for astronauts — or present an image of a friendly face — as well as a voice shaped by IBM's AI technology.   More
(Source: Live Science - Mar 3)

SATELLITE VIEW SHOWS 'BOMB CYCLONE' BATTERING U.S. EAST COAST - A stunning video from space shows a winter storm – also known as a "bomb cyclone" – slamming into the northeast United States today (March 2). Flooding and sheets of snow and rain accompanied the storm, along with strong waves along the coasts. The images from the GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite)-East satellite show the storm developing and morphing since Tuesday (Feb. 27). Clouds concentrate over the east coast and linger there, obscuring the view below. "Take this storm seriously!" the National Weather Service in Boston said on Twitter yesterday (March 1). "This is a LIFE & DEATH situation for those living along the coast, especially those ocean-exposed shorelines."    More
(Source: Space.com - Mar 3)

SOYUZ MS-06 RETURNS THREE ISS CREW MEMBERS TO EARTH - Expedition 54 Flight Engineers Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba of NASA and Commander Alexander Misurkin of Roscosmos have returned from the International Space Station (ISS) in their Soyuz MS-06 spacecraft. The trio landed on the steppes of Kazakhstan around 02:31 UTC. During their 168 days in space, they were part of the first expedition that began a long-term increase in the crew size on the U.S. segment from three people to four, enabling NASA to double the time dedicated to research – surpassing 100 hours of research in one week.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Mar 1)

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