SEE BACK-TO-BACK ROCKET LAUNCHES EARLY SATURDAY: HOW TO WATCH THEM ONLINE - Calling all early-bird space fans! Two rockets — one Russian and the other American — will launch on two very different missions early Saturday (Oct. 14). You can watch both launches online, but you'll have to wake up in the wee hours to do it. The space action starts at 3:31 a.m. EDT (0731 GMT) with the launch of a classified U.S. spy satellite on a United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.    More
(Source: Space.com - Oct 14)

AMERICANS WILL HEAD TO SPACE AGAIN, WITHOUT A RUSSIAN TAXI - Since the Space Shuttle’s retirement six years ago, NASA has been buying spots aboard Russian Soyuz craft to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. It’s a politically awkward arrangement, to say the least, given more than a decade of strained relations, Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the dented American pride in having to ask in the first place. The situation has understandably increased pressure on NASA, which hired Boeing Co. and Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build a new generation of vessels to shuttle U.S. astronauts to the station. Both companies are scheduled to fly two test flights next year for NASA’s commercial crew program, including one each that will carry two crew members—an ambitious schedule that could slip into 2019.   More
(Source: Bloomberg - Oct 14)

TIANGONG-1: CHINESE SPACE STATION WILL CRASH TO EARTH WITHIN MONTHS - An 8.5-tonne Chinese space station has accelerated its out-of-control descent towards Earth and is expected to crash to the surface within a few months. The Tiangong-1 or “Heavenly Palace” lab was launched in 2011 and described as a “potent political symbol” of China, part of an ambitious scientific push to turn China into a space superpower. It was used for both manned and unmanned missions and visited by China’s first female astronaut, Liu Yang, in 2012.   More
(Source: The Guardian - Oct 14)

MODIFIED RUSSIAN MISSILE BOOSTS EUROPE’S NEWEST ENVIRONMENTAL SENTINEL TO SPACE - A European satellite that will collect daily air quality measurements over every major city on Earth rode an uprated Russian ballistic missile into orbit Friday. Assembled in Britain with a significant Dutch contribution, the Sentinel 5 Precursor satellite will measure greenhouse gases with unrivaled precision, mapping atmospheric chemistry in city-sized blocks to help tell policymakers and scientists how air pollution changes day-to-day.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 13)

POLLUTION-TRACKING SATELLITE LAUNCHES FRIDAY: WATCH LIVE - A European satellite built to map Earth's air like never before will launch into space early Friday (Oct. 13), and you can watch it live online. The Sentinel-5P satellite of the European Space Agency (ESA) is scheduled to lift off aboard a Rockot launch vehicle at 5:27 a.m. EDT (0927 GMT) from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. You can watch the launch live beginning at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 GMT), courtesy of the ESA. You can also watch the launch directly from the ESA. Sentinel-5P (the "P" stands for "Precursor") is designed to track global air pollution from orbit in unprecedented detail.    More
(Source: Space.com - Oct 13)

LAUNCH OF SOYUZ 2.1A WITH PROGRESS MS-07 SCRUBBED SECONDS BEFORE LIFTOFF - Less than a minute before it was to take to the skies to deliver the Progress MS-07 cargo freighter to the International Space Station, an unknown issue with the Soyuz 2.1a launch vehicle prompted a rare scrub for the Russian space agency’s workhorse rocket. Liftoff was expected at 5:32 a.m. EDT (09:32 GMT) Oct. 12, 2017, from Site 31 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Insider - Oct 13)

SPACEX LAUNCHES ITS 15TH MISSION OF THE YEAR - Maintaining a brisk flight rate three days after its last launch, SpaceX sent a Falcon 9 booster powered by a reused first stage into orbit Wednesday evening from Florida with an Airbus-built communications satellite for SES and EchoStar. The successful launch placed the 5.7-ton (5.2-metric ton) satellite in a “supersynchronous” orbit arcing thousands of miles above Earth, and the Falcon 9’s first stage returned to landing on a football field-sized barge holding position around 200 miles (300 kilometers) east of Cape Canaveral.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 13)

SENTINEL-5P POISED FOR LIFTOFF - With four days to liftoff, the next Sentinel satellite is now on the launch pad at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. The rocket will be fuelled two days before launch, set for Friday at 09:27 GMT (11:27 CEST). The Sentinel-5P satellite has been at the cosmodrome since early September going through a series of tests and being readied for the big day. After being sealed from view in the rocket fairing last week, it was rolled out to the launch pad on Saturday.   More
(Source: Space Daily - Oct 12)

WATCH RUSSIA LAUNCH ITS FASTEST SPACE STATION CARGO FLIGHT YET ON THURSDAY! - The Russian space agency Roscosmos is about to make history with its fastest cargo flight ever to the International Space Station, launching early Thursday (Oct. 12), and you can watch it live online. Roscosmos will launch a Souyuz rocket carrying the robotic cargo ship Progress 38 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kasakhstan at 5:32 a.m. EDT (0932 GMT). The cargo ship's superfast trip will bring it to the orbiting lab at 8:56 a.m. EDT (1256 GMT). Total elapsed time from launch to docking will be 3 hours, 24 minutes. You can watch the launch live on NASA TV, courtesy of NASA, beginning at 5:15 a.m. EDT (0915 GMT).    More
(Source: Space.com - Oct 12)

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