U.S. CARGO SPACECRAFT SET FOR DEPARTURE FROM INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - After delivering more than 4,800 pounds of science and supplies to the International Space Station, a SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft will depart the orbiting laboratory on Saturday, Jan. 13. NASA will provide live coverage of Dragon’s departure beginning at 4:30 a.m. EST. On Friday, Jan. 12, flight controllers will use the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm to detach Dragon from the Earth-facing side of the station’s Harmony module. After Dragon is maneuvered into place, a ground-controlled command will release the spacecraft as NASA’s Expedition 54 Flight Engineers Joe Acaba and Scott Tingle monitor its departure at 5 a.m. Saturday.   More
(Source: Space Fellowship - Jan 9)

SECRET ZUMA SATELLITE'S FATE UNKNOWN AFTER SPACEX LAUNCH - SpaceX on Monday said a Falcon 9 rocket appeared to have performed as expected during its Sunday night launch of the government's classified Zuma mission, amid rumors of a possible mission failure. “We do not comment on missions of this nature; but as of right now reviews of the data indicate Falcon 9 performed nominally,” a SpaceX spokesperson said in a statement. Northrop Grumman, which was responsible for the spacecraft and contracted for the launch, did not immediately respond to questions.   More
(Source: USA Today - Jan 9)

THE DANGEROUS DOWNSIDE TO DARPA’S NEW REPAIR SATELLITE - The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's science wing, is developing a new type of satellite that can repair, refuel, and upgrade other satellites in high orbit. The Robotic Servicing of Geosynchronous Satellites initiative could help extend the lives of expensive communications and surveillance spacecraft, thus reducing the need for replacement craft and also cutting down on the number of dead satellites cluttering up the space around Earth. Advertisement   More
(Source: Motherboard - Jan 9)

LONG MARCH 2D TO SEND A DUO OF SUPERVIEW-1 SATELLITES INTO ORBIT - China is gearing up to conduct its first orbital flight of 2018. The mission, scheduled for Tuesday, January 9, will employ a Long March 2D booster to send two SuperView-1 Earth-observing satellites into space. The rocket is currently scheduled to lift off at around 3:20 GMT (10:20 p.m. EST on January 8) from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center (TSLC) located in China’s Shanxi Province.    More
(Source: SpaceFlight Insider - Jan 8)

SPACEX LAUNCHES SECRETIVE ZUMA SPACECRAFT - After more than a month of delays, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket vaulted toward the skies at 8 p.m. ET Sunday with the secretive payload. It launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The space exploration firm, which is headed by Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, initially scheduled the Zuma mission last November. SpaceX gave a couple reasons for the schedule changes. At one point, SpaceX said it delayed the mission for "fairing testing." The fairing is the very top portion of the rocket that houses the payload. "Extreme weather" also slowed down the company's launch preparations.    More
(Source: CNN - Jan 8)

SPACEX TO LAUNCH SECRET NRO SATELLITE FOR US GOVT SUNDAY - Technology pioneer Elon Musk's aerospace firm, SpaceX, is preparing to launch a secretive spacecraft for an unnamed branch of the US government this weekend after postponing the event in November. Codenamed Zuma, the launch was initially scheduled for November from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at Merritt Island, Florida. SpaceX delayed sending Zuma into space after concerns emerged about the nose cone protecting the payload from dynamic pressure and aerodynamic heating on its way out of the atmosphere.   More
(Source: Space Daily - Jan 6)

HERE ARE THE MAJOR SATELLITE LAUNCHES FOR 2018 - The year 2018 beckons us to new hopes, ambitions and opportunities and the expectation that this year is going to be better than the preceding years – more calm, more peaceful, less precarious and geared towards innovation, rapid progress and momentous strides in the field of space technology. Many satellites and spacecraft will be lifted and sent into orbital this year, and this will contribute more to our understanding of space and other phenomena on earth that impact us, including climate change, natural disasters, agricultural patterns, dwindling ice cover and ocean salinity, along with fostering an enabling mechanism for new disruptions.   More
(Source: Geospatial World - Jan 6)

ISRO READY FOR FIRST SATELLITE LAUNCH IN 4 MONTHS AFTER FAILURE IN AUGUST - For more than four months, all Indian rockets have been grounded after the country's first private-sector manufactured satellite was declared unsuccessful in August last year. ISRO, the country's premier space agency that handled the launch seems to have regained confidence and is ready for a lift-off on January 12, if all goes well. In what is seen as a big embarrassment to ISRO, the 41st mission of the PSLV, which carried the satellite, failed on August 31 as the satellite's protective heat shield did not drop off. A group of scientists and experts were investigating what went wrong.   More
(Source: NDTV - Jan 6)

SECRETIVE SPACEX MISSION SLIPS, MAY DELAY FALCON HEAVY DEBUT - The company's most mysterious launch yet has been delayed for nearly two months and just got pushed back again. SpaceX is now hoping to launch "Zuma" into orbit via one of the company's Falcon 9 rockets on Sunday after nearly two months of delays. What exactly Zuma is, though, is still a big secret. Northrop Grumman confirmed to me in November that it had contracted with Elon Musk's commercial space venture to do the launch on behalf of a US government agency, which it didn't name. It provided no other details about the payload   More
(Source: CNET - Jan 5)

Previous Next