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)
SECOND OF NOAA’S “HIGH-DEFINITION” WEATHER SATELLITES READY FOR LAUNCH - The second satellite in a quartet of new NOAA weather observatories is awaiting liftoff Thursday aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, heading for a position 22,000 miles from Earth to scan the western United States and Pacific Ocean for typhoons, wildfires and fog. The GOES-S weather satellite, to be renamed GOES-17 once in orbit, is bolted on top of a 197-foot-tall (60-meter) Atlas 5 rocket set for launch from Cape Canaveral at 5:02 p.m. EST (2202 GMT) Thursday. The launch window extends for two hours, and the official weather outlook calls for an 80 percent probability of favorable conditions. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Mar 1)
NEW SATELLITE WILL SHIFT SHAPE WHILE IN SPACE - While the U.S. and Russia often steal the scene when it comes to wondrous space missions, in Europe the U.K is launching a new satellite that is sure to surprise its international partners. The Eutelsat Quantum satellite, built by the firm Airbus, will be the first commercial satellite equipped to shapeshift while in orbit. Operators will be able to reconfigure the satellite in real time, modifying elements such as its frequency and the areas of the earth it covers. Speaking with Phys.org, Yohann Leroy, deputy CEO of French satellite operator Eutelsat, said that “what is really new is the level of flexibility that the satellite will provide […] thanks to a combination of technologies that we will put on board the satellite.” More (Source: Futurism - Feb 28)
RUSSIA CLAIMS IT NOW HAS LASERS TO SHOOT SATELLITES - A defense source tells Russian media that military engineers have advanced work on the next big anti-satellite weapon. Russian defense companies have created a plane-mounted laser that can hit satellites — at least according to an anonymous source quoted by Russian news agency Interfax. On Saturday, an Interfax report cited the source as saying that weapons maker Almaz-Antey has “completed work on the anti-satellite complex,” which includes the laser and associated ground control gear. More (Source: Defense One - Feb 28)
STATION HATCHES CLOSED, TRIO PREPARES TO HEAD HOME - At 2:58 p.m. EST, the hatch closed between the Soyuz MS-06 spacecraft and the International Space Station in preparation for undocking. Expedition 54 crewmates Mark Vande Hei and Joe Acaba of NASA and Commander Alexander Misurkin of Roscosmos are scheduled to undock their Soyuz at 6:08 p.m. NASA Television will air live coverage of undocking beginning at 5:45 p.m. More (Source: NASA - Feb 28)
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