CHECK OUT THIS PHOTO OF THE SPACE STATION PASSING BETWEEN THE EARTH AND THE SUN - Self-proclaimed amateur astronomer Alan Strauss took this photo of the sun on New Year's Day from a park in Tucson, Arizona. But do you see that faint stitching that's bisecting the sun's middle? That's the International Space Station. Strauss, the director of the University of Arizona's Mt. Lemmon SkyCenter, has a PhD in education but enjoys dabbling in the cosmos like his colleagues. Sometimes, he said, when he finds out the ISS will be passing overhead, he finds out where he can see it and takes his telescope to catch the show. More (Source: CNN - Jan 5)
SPACEX: FALCON 9 WILL FINALLY LAUNCH WITH MYSTERY ZUMA PAYLOAD FRIDAY NIGHT - SpaceX is to launch its mysterious and heavily delayed Zuma satellite on Friday night. Attached to a Falcon 9 rocket, the contents of the craft are shrouded in mystery but it is believed to be carrying a U.S. government payload. The rocket is currently scheduled to take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida at some point between 8 and 10 p.m. ET, according to a forecast issued yesterday by a branch of the U.S. Air Force. More (Source: Newsweek - Jan 4)
RUSSIA LOST A $45 MILLION WEATHER SATELLITE DUE TO HUMAN ERROR, OFFICIAL SAYS - The loss of a $45 million Russian weather satellite last November was due to human error, a high-ranking official said, because the satellite's programming was set for the wrong launch site. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin told Russian state television that the programming for the satellite, called Meteor-M No.2-1, included instructions based on the satellite launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, east of Russia. Baikonur is a frequent launch site for satellites and astronauts. However, Meteor-M launched from the new Vostochny launch site in eastern Russian. More (Source: Space.com - Jan 4)
2 EXTERNAL INSTRUMENTS INSTALLED ON ISS OVER NEW YEAR’S HOLIDAY - While many around the world celebrated the arrival of 2018 with champagne, fireworks and social gatherings, robotics operators at NASA’s Johnson Space Center rang in the New Year by working to remotely install new external instruments recently brought to International Space Station inside the trunk of SpaceX’s CRS-13 Dragon cargo spacecraft. On Dec. 28, 2017, robotic operators worked to extract the first of two external instruments from Dragon’s trunk: the Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor (TSIS-1). More (Source: SpaceFlight Insider - Jan 4)
THESE NASA ROBOTS ARE HEADING TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - Inside NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley is a test environment that simulates the International Space Station's pressurized capsules. Here, aerospace engineers test the new Astrobee intra vehicular activity (IVA) robots, which will be heading to the ISS in the spring. These robots are 1-by-1-foot cubes, with an array of LED communication lights. They can function autonomously or be remotely controlled from Houston. While on the ISS, Astrobees will carry out routine maintenance tasks, like checking inventory with an RFID scanner and using a sensor-array to record air quality levels, CO2, and radiation. More (Source: Fox News - Jan 3)
LIVE COVERAGE: SPACEX’S FIRST LAUNCH OF 2018 SCHEDULED FOR FRIDAY NIGHT - Launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster with a secretive U.S. government payload named Zuma is scheduled for Friday night from Cape Canaveral during a two-hour launch window opening at 8 p.m. EST (0100 GMT Saturday), one day later than previously planned after a delay from mid-November to complete technical reviews on the rocket. Little is known about the Zuma payload, other than Northrop Grumman was tapped by the U.S. government to procure commercial launch services for the mission. Northrop Grumman selected SpaceX's Falcon 9 for the job. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 3)
WHY THE US SHOULD NOTIFY THE PUBLIC OF ALL SATELLITE REENTRIES - In January 2017, a retired satellite reentered the atmosphere—an old soldier that undoubtedly had provided many years of good service. Hopefully, in some secure vault somewhere, the organization that flew it had a ceremony where they honored the memory of their departed friend. This was certainly a US satellite that had been tracked and monitored up until the end, but this one was an “off the books” satellite. More (Source: The Space Review - Jan 2)
ROCKET LAUNCHES AND TRIPS TO THE MOON WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2018 - If you love space and astronomy, 2018 will be an exciting year. NASA has announced windows of time for sending spacecraft to Mars and the sun. Japanese and American probes already in space are set to enter orbit around two near-Earth asteroids. And a variety of eclipses and meteor showers offer ample opportunities for skygazing. We’ve put dates for these events and more on The Times’s Astronomy and Space Calendar. But while some dates are certain or proximate, there’s a lot to be unsure about down here on Earth. More (Source: New York Times - Jan 2)
ROGUE CHINESE SPACE STATION EXPECTED TO HURTLE TOWARD EARTH IN 2018, RESEARCHERS SAY - The new year could bring a major scare: the expected crash of an 18,740-pound Chinese space station headed toward Planet Earth. And researchers haven’t been able to pinpoint exactly when and where this event will likely happen. Tiangong-1, a Chinese space station that launched into Earth’s orbit in September 2011, was predicted in essence to fall out of space around January 2018, according to an October forecast by researchers at The Aerospace Corporation. More (Source: Fox News - Jan 1)
Previous Next
