SPACEX’S 50TH FALCON ROCKET LAUNCH KICKS OFF STATION RESUPPLY MISSION - A cache of cargo bound for the International Space Station lifted off on a commercial SpaceX launcher Friday, thundering into mostly clear skies over Florida’s Space Coast aboard a reused booster that made a bullseye landing back at Cape Canaveral accompanied by a crackling sonic boom. Riding a column of brilliant flame from nine Merlin 1D main engines, the Falcon 9 rocket climbed away from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad at 10:36:09 a.m. EST (1536:09 GMT) Friday, turning northeast over the Atlantic Ocean to align with the space station’s orbital track.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 16)

SOYUZ CARRIES THREE STATION CREW MEMBERS BACK TO EARTH - A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying three space station crew members hurtled back to Earth Thursday, completing a fiery plunge back through the atmosphere before settling to a frigid touchdown on the snowy steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 139-day mission. With Soyuz MS-05 commander Sergey Ryazanskiy at the controls in the charred descent module’s center seat, flanked on the left by NASA flight engineer Randy Bresnik and on the right by Italian astronaut Paolo Nespoli, the spacecraft landing near the town of Dzezkazgan at 3:37 a.m. EST (GMT-5; 2:37 p.m. local time).   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 15)

WATCH LIVE: SPACEX DRAGON CAPSULE LAUNCH TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - On Friday morning, commercial space company SpaceX is due to send a spacecraft full of supplies and science projects up to the International Space Station, and you can watch all the excitement live on NASA's website. The broadcast is scheduled to start at 10 a.m. ET to accommodate the launch window, which opens at 10:36 a.m. There also is a SpaceX webcast of the launch. The launch was originally scheduled for December 8, then was pushed to Tuesday morning and then Wednesday morning and finally Friday morning, after SpaceX announced delays late Monday and Tuesday evenings.    More
(Source: Newsweek - Dec 14)

SPACE STATION CREW RETURNS TO EARTH TONIGHT: HOW TO WATCH LIVE - Three space travelers will depart from the International Space Station (ISS) tonight after a six-month stay aboard the orbiting laboratory. Cramped inside a small Soyuz space capsule, NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, European Space Agency astronaut Paolo Nespoli and Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy will undock from the ISS early tomorrow morning (Dec. 14) at 12:14 a.m. EST (0514 GMT). You can watch their journey home live here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV. NASA TV will begin airing live coverage at 8:30 p.m. today (Dec. 13) as the members of the spacefaring trio bid farewell to the three remaining crewmembers, settle into the Soyuz capsule and close the hatch.   More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 14)

VAN ALLEN BELT MYSTERY SOLVED WITH STUDENT-BUILT SATELLITE - Oh, that Van Allen Belt—online crackpots love to use Earth’s belt of radiation to bolster their Moon landing conspiracies, suggesting it could be too strong for an astronaut to travel through (not true). But the truth is, scientists do think about the Van Allen Belt and its mysteries. They’ve launched probes to study the region since they weren’t sure where some of that radiation came from. The belt consists of charged particles like protons and electrons trapped by Earth’s magnetic field between 300 miles and 25,000 miles above the Earth’s surface.    More
(Source: Gizmodo - Dec 14)

ROCKET LAB BEGINS NEW COUNTDOWN WITH FIX FOR PROPULSION SYSTEM GLITCH - The Electron launch was scrubbed again Wednesday night (U.S. time), and liftoff has been rescheduled for Thursday night (U.S. time)... With a fix in place for a propulsion system alarm that cut short a countdown in the final seconds Monday, U.S. time, Rocket Lab is readying an Electron rocket for another try in a window opening at 8:30 p.m. EST Wednesday (0130 GMT Tuesday) to begin a test flight aiming to deliver three small commercial CubeSats to orbit from a remote New Zealand launch pad.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 14)

FCC BEGINS APPROVAL OF ORBITAL ATK SATELLITE-SERVICING MISSION FOR INTELSAT-901 - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Dec. 5 okayed the first part of a satellite-servicing mission Orbital ATK’s Space Logistic subsidiary has with Intelsat, saying the servicing vehicle can execute “rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking with the Intelsat-901” satellite while in a graveyard orbit. Regulatory approvals for the first Mission Extension Vehicle-1 (MEV-1) are proceeding as planned, Joe Anderson, vice president of business development and operations for Space Logistics, told SpaceNews Dec. 12, though the FCC deferred on some of the company’s requests.    More
(Source: SpaceNews - Dec 13)

TO FIX THE SPACE JUNK PROBLEM, ADD A SELF-DESTRUCT MODULE - Humans have gotten pretty good at launching stuff into space—but way less good at getting stuff back down. Up in lower Earth orbit, along with a thousand-plus productive satellites, there are many more slackers: space junk, cosmic trash, garbage of the highest-orbiting order. According to the European Space Agency’s latest statistics, there are about 29,000 pieces of such junk larger than 10 centimeters, 750,000 between 1 and 10 centimeters, and a 166 million between 1 mm and 1 centimeter.   More
(Source: Wired - Dec 13)

NASA AND SPACEX NOW TARGET WEDNESDAY FOR DRAGON LAUNCH - NASA and SpaceX are now targeting no earlier than 11:24 a.m. EST Wednesday, Dec. 13th, for the company’s 13th commercial resupply services mission to the International Space Station. SpaceX requested additional time for prelaunch ground systems checks. A Dragon spacecraft will launch atop a Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Dragon is now scheduled to arrive at the space station on Saturday, Dec. 16.   More
(Source: NASA - Dec 13)

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