GOODBYE, ISS. HELLO, PRIVATE SPACE STATIONS? - Have you heard? The ISS might go away in 2025. Yep, that ISS—our big, honking space laboratory in the sky, one of the most successful international partnership stories of all time. Continually staffed since 2000. Off the Earth, for the Earth. One of the most expensive public projects ever, second possibly only to America’s Interstate Highway System. Unofficially, 2025 has been the station’s retirement year since 2014, when NASA and its international partners agreed to keep it flying through 2024. But there’s always been an assumption that end date could stretch to 2028, a point cited as when degrading hardware might start making life aboard the station a little dicey. More (Source: The Planetary Society - Feb 21)
GOES-S TO LAUNCH NEXT WEEK JOINING GOES-16 IN NOAA’S NEW GENERATION OF WEATHER SATELLITES - America’s fleet of weather satellites will grow this March as NASA and NOAA launch GOES-S, the newest satellite that will help meteorologists to improve forecast accuracy. GOES-S will be the second member of a new generation of geostationary weather satellites, joining GOES-16, formerly known as GOES-R, which launched on Nov. 19, 2016 “The GOES-S satellite will join GOES-16 as NOAA continues to upgrade its satellite fleet,” Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said. More (Source: Accuweather - Feb 21)
SPACEX LAUNCH OF PAZ AND MICROSAT-2A AND -2B POSTPONED - The launch of the Spanish PAZ satellite from Vandenberg AFB by SpaceX has been postponed, with a reference to "technical reasons" by that country's Ministry of Defense as the reason for the new delay. PAZ, when on orbit, will perform both military and civil operations, such as troop movements, environmental observations and more. More (Source: SatNews - Feb 19)
NASA EVICTS GOLD-HELMETED ROBO-ASTRONAUT FROM SPACE - NASA is sending the ISS Robonaut – a sinister-looking humanoid with legs like tentacles – back to Earth for repairs. Robonaut 2 has officially been out of action since 2015 after a hardware upgrade went terribly wrong leaving the dexterous humanoid incapacitated. Following failed attempts to get the gold-helmeted action man back on its feet, it will now be sent home for a fix, with the intention of one day returning to the International Space Station. More (Source: RT - Feb 17)
RUSSIA, CHINA WILL HAVE ANTI-SATELLITE WEAPONS “WITHIN A FEW YEARS” - The U.S. intelligence community’s new worldwide assessment of threats to the United States and its allies issued a stark warning about space warfare: Russia and China will be able to shoot down our satellites within two to three years. The capability would seriously jeopardize the U.S. fleet, including Global Positioning System satellites, military and civilian communications satellites, and spy satellites. But would either country use them? And if they did, would they risk even greater damage to their own networks? More (Source: Popular Mechanics - Feb 16)
RUSSIAN CARGO SHIP DOCKS AT INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - An unmanned Russian cargo ship has docked successfully at the International Space Station, delivering a fresh batch of supplies for the crew. The Russian space agency Roscosmos said the Progress spacecraft moored at the station Thursday in automatic mode, bringing 2.7 metric tons (3 tons) of food, fuel and instruments. It was launched Tuesday from the Russian space complex in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. More (Source: ABC News - Feb 16)
NASA GEARS UP FOR BRISK LAUNCH PACE, STARTING WITH WEATHER SATELLITE - Engineers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center tasked with overseeing launches of scientific satellites and interplanetary probes will be responsible later this year for ensuring six major missions safely get into space over a span of a little more than six months, beginning with the launch of NOAA’s new GOES-S weather observatory on an Atlas 5 rocket March 1. After overseeing the launch of NOAA’s latest weather satellite, NASA plans to put up a spacecraft to search for planets circling other stars, a lander that will travel to Mars, a small satellite to study the interaction between solar activity and Earth’s atmosphere, a probe to travel closer to the sun than any previous mission, and a mission to measure Earth’s thinning polar ice sheets and glaciers. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Feb 15)
SPACEX GETS U.S. REGULATOR TO BACK SATELLITE INTERNET PLAN - Elon Musk’s SpaceX, fresh off the successful launch this month of the world’s most powerful rocket, won an endorsement on Wednesday from the top U.S. communications regulator to build a broadband network using satellites. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai proposed the approval of an application by SpaceX to provide broadband services using satellites in the United States and worldwide. “Satellite technology can help reach Americans who live in rural or hard-to-serve places where fiber optic cables and cell towers do not reach,” Pai said in a statement. More (Source: Reuters - Feb 15)
SOYUZ ROCKET LAUNCHES CARGO FREIGHTER TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - Running two days later after a last-minute abort Sunday, a Russian Progress resupply and refueling freighter lifted off in a blanket of fog Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to deliver three tons of cargo, propellant and water to the International Space Station. The Progress MS-08 supply ship blasted off atop a Soyuz-2.1a rocket at 0813:33 GMT (3:13:33 a.m. EST; 2:13:33 p.m. Baikonur time) Tuesday from the historic Russian-run spaceport on the steppe of Kazakhstan. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Feb 14)
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