PEGASUS ROCKET, NASA SATELLITE HEAD FOR LAUNCH BASE IN PACIFIC - Slung under the belly of a specially-equipped carrier airplane, a Northrop Grumman Pegasus rocket took off Wednesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base on a two-day trek to a remote U.S. military test site in the Pacific Ocean, where crews will ready the air-dropped booster for launch of a NASA research satellite next week. The ferry flight from California to Kwajalein Atoll in the mid-Pacific Ocean will position the Pegasus rocket, its carrier jet, and support teams for final preparations for launch June 14 with NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, a satellite designed to probe the link between Earth’s atmosphere and space weather.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 7)

ASTRONAUTS LAUNCHING TO SPACE STATION WEDNESDAY MORNING: WATCH IT LIVE - Three astronauts are launching toward the International Space Station (ISS) tomorrow morning (June 6), and you can watch their departure from Earth live. NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor, cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst are scheduled to lift off aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan tomorrow at 7:12 a.m. EDT (1112 GMT; 5:12 p.m. local Baikonur time). You can watch the launch live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV; coverage begins at 6:15 a.m. EDT (1015 GMT).   More
(Source: Space.com - Jun 6)

LONG MARCH 3A ROCKET LAUNCHES FENGYUN-2H METEOROLOGICAL SATELLITE - China on Tuesday launched the Fengyun-2H weather satellite, successfully inserting the near 1.4-metric-ton spacecraft into a geostationary-transfer orbit. The Long March 3A launch vehicle lifted off from Launch Complex 3 at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China at 09:07 a.m. Eastern, in accordance with airspace closure notices published days in advance. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced success of the launch just under an hour after liftoff.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Jun 6)

DEADLY FUEGO VOLCANO ERUPTION IN GUATEMALA SPOTTED FROM SPACE - Satellites are keeping tabs on a powerful volcanic eruption in Guatemala that has killed dozens of people. Volcan de Fuego, which lies about 40 miles (70 kilometers) southwest of Guatemala City, has been simmering for years, occasionally flaring up with bouts of dramatic activity. Tragically, one such outburst occurred on Sunday (June 3). "A deadly mixture of ash, rock fragments, and hot gases rushed down ravines and stream channels on the sides of the volcano," officials with the NASA Earth Observatory wrote in a statementMonday (June 4).   More
(Source: Space.com - Jun 6)

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION SSTV SET TO BE ACTIVE JUNE 6–7 - The International Space Station (ISS) Amateur Radio Slow Scan Television (SSTV) system is expected to be active on 145.800 MHz FM on June 6 and 7, likely using PD-120 format. The schedule calls for transmissions on Wednesday, June 6, 1230 – 1630 UTC, and Thursday, June 7, 1150 – 1525 UTC.   More
(Source: ARRL - Jun 5)

NASA TO LAUNCH NEW ISS CREW THIS WEEK FOLLOWING SAFE RETURN OF 3 ASTRONAUTS - Just days after seeing the safe return of three astronauts from the International Space Station, NASA is preparing to launch a new crew to orbit Wednesday morning, June 6 from Kazakhstan. The U.S. space agency shared a photo of crews rolling the Soyuz MS-08 rocket that will send the crew to the orbiting laboratory on Wednesday to the launch pad.    More
(Source: MLive.com - Jun 5)

NASA GETS ITS ICON SATELLITE READY FOR LAUNCH - With a growing reliance on the global positioning system (GPS), satellites and other space-based technologies for use in everyday life on Earth, the importance of understanding the region of space where these technologies operate has also grown. Changes in space weather, such as charged-particle storms in the ionosphere, can distort satellite or GPS signals, affecting communications on many levels. This not only has implications for the military, but also for society, as self-driving cars will rely on GPS-based navigation as will modern agriculture technologies. In order to examine how the weather in space affects these technologies, scientists are looking at the connection of weather on Earth to the ionosphere.   More
(Source: Signal Magazine - Jun 5)

SPACEX ROCKET LAUNCHES POWERFUL COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE - Lighting up the deep overnight sky, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket flashed to life and blasted off from Cape Canaveral early Monday, boosting a powerful SES satellite into space that will deliver direct-to-home TV, broadband and data relay services to customers across the Asia-Pacific region, Australia and the Middle East. Running four days late because of unspecified technical issues, the previously flown Falcon 9's first-stage engines ignited at 12:45 a.m. EDT (GMT-4), generating a torrent of fiery exhaust and thick clouds of steam before vaulting away from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.   More
(Source: CBS News - Jun 4)

WATCH SPACEX LAUNCH A COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE TONIGHT - Just two weeks after it successfully launched a batch of satellites into orbit, SpaceX is slated to send another Falcon 9 into space. The company will launch a SES-12 communications satellite from Cape Canaveral in Florida, with its launch window beginning at 12:29 AM EDT on Monday morning. The satellite in question is from SES, a Luxembourg-based telecom company, and will provide communications services for the Asian-Pacific and Middle East regions. The company notes that it’s one of the largest that it’s ever launched, and that it will help provide data in a part of the world where demand is expected to grow rapidly in the coming years.    More
(Source: The Verge - Jun 4)

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