SOUPED-UP SOUNDING ROCKET LIFTS OFF FROM JAPAN WITH TINY SATELLITE - A year after its tiny, experimental rocket failed to reach orbit a year ago, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) successfully launched (via Engadget) an experimental rocket into orbit this weekend, the smallest ever to do so. According to JAXA, the launch was a demonstration experiment, that carried the TRICOM-1R — a three-unit cubesat— into lower Earth orbit, where it will observe the Earth with a set of cameras. Now in orbit, JAXA says that its status is “nominal.”   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Feb 4)

ARE JUNK CLEARING LASERS THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS WEAPONIZING SPACE? - Space junk is old fragments of booster rockets or satellites that remain in orbit around the Earth. It is a huge problem because there is an increasing amount of space junk. There is an estimated 170 million pieces of space junk, some are tiny slivers or fragments, others are much larger. NASA estimates there are over 20 thousand pieces at the least the size of a softball. They travel at a speed of about 28 thousand kilometres per hour. Most of the millions of pieces of space junk are the tiny fragments. These are biggest problem because they are the hardest to detect.    More
(Source: CBC.ca - Feb 3)

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION: RUSSIA WANTS TO SEND YOU ON HOLIDAY TO SPACE - Forget the Bahamas—your next holiday destination could be infinitely more exotic. Russian space company Energia wants to take tourists on a 10-day trip to the International Space Station. “We are discussing the possibility of sending tourists on spacewalks,” Vladimir Solntsev, the head of the company, told Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda. Energia was behind the technology that took the first human into outer space. Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin blasted off on April 12, 1961, in a Vostok spacecraft.   More
(Source: Newsweek - Feb 3)

CHINA LAUNCHES ELECTROMAGNETIC SATELLITE TO STUDY EARTHQUAKE PRECURSORS - China on Friday launched its first seismo-electromagnetic satellite to study seismic precursors, which might help establish a ground-space earthquake monitoring and forecasting network in the future. A Long March-2D rocket launched at 15:51 from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, in northwest China's Gobi Desert, carried the 730-kilogram China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite (CSES) into a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of about 500 kilometers.   More
(Source: Xinhua - Feb 3)

SATELLITE TRANSFORMS INTO HUGE FIREBALL AS IT CRASHES TO EARTH IN PERU - This is the moment a huge fireball was seen soaring through the skies of South America on Saturday. But far from being a UFO or a planet-destroying asteroid, the Peruvian Air Force confirmed that the burning object was an old piece of satellite that burnt up after entering the earth’s orbit. The remaining parts of the satellite were discovered by peasants in southeastern Peru, who immediately contacted the Peruvian Air Force.   More
(Source: Yahoo News - Feb 2)

SOYUZ ROCKET FIRES INTO SPACE WITH 11 SATELLITES - A Soyuz rocket crowned by a Fregat upper stage carrying 11 Russian, German and U.S. satellites into orbit lifted off Thursday from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East, the first flight from the country’s newest spaceport since a failure in November. The Soyuz-2.1a rocket lifted off at 0207:18 GMT Thursday (9:07:18 p.m. EST Wednesday) from Vostochny, a cosmodrome carved from the forests of Russia’s Amur region near the country’s border with China.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Feb 2)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, EXPLORER 1! 1ST US SATELLITE LAUNCHED 60 YEARS AGO TODAY - On Jan. 31, 1958, the nation launched its first successful satellite — Explorer 1, which rode to Earth orbit atop a Jupiter-C rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Missile Annex (now called Cape Canaveral Air Force Station). We have firmly established our foothold in space," rocket pioneer Wernher von Braun, who led the team that designed the Jupiter-C, said shortly after Explorer 1 made it to space. "We will never give it up." The success of Explorer 1 soothed a lot of jangled nerves among the American political and military elite, who had recently endured three humbling space setbacks.    More
(Source: Space.com - Feb 1)

SPACEX ROCKET LAUNCHES LUXEMBOURG SATELLITE FOR NATO - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Wednesday carrying into orbit a Luxembourg-made communications satellite designed in part to expand NATO’s surveillance reach and its capability to deter cyber attacks on alliance members. The liftoff at 4:25 p.m. EST (2125 GMT) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station followed a technical glitch that prompted a 24-hour flight delay. It marked the second rocket launch this year for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and his privately owned Space Exploration Technologies.    More
(Source: Reuters - Feb 1)

NASA SPOTS SPECTACULAR ISS TRANSIT ACROSS THE FULL MOON - Plenty of people were out in the dark photographing the rare super blue blood moon, but NASA senior photographer Bill Ingalls captured an instant classic with a look at the International Space Station crossing in front of the full moon on Tuesday night Eastern. It takes a lot of skill and a bit of luck to get an image like this. The ISS travels at around 5 miles (8 kilometers) per second, so the window for a transit shot is short. Ingalls dialed in the focus perfectly to highlight both the craters and landscape of the moon with the space station in front.   More
(Source: CNET - Feb 1)

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