GALILEO NAVIGATION SATELLITES BUTTONED UP FOR LAUNCH ON ARIANE 5 ROCKET - Technicians working in the jungle of French Guiana have installed four new European Galileo navigation satellites on top of their Ariane 5 launcher, and filled the rocket’s upper stage with storable liquid propellants for liftoff Tuesday. The satellite quartet will join 18 others already in space to build out Europe’s Galileo fleet, an independent civilian-run analog to the U.S. Air Force’s Global Positioning System and the Russian military’s Glonass network. Liftoff of the Ariane 5 rocket is set for an instantaneous launch opportunity at 1836:07 GMT (1:36:07 p.m. EST; 3:36:07 p.m. French Guiana time) Tuesday.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 10)

ROCKET LAB PUSHES BACK SECOND ELECTRON LAUNCH TO SUNDAY - Rocket Lab plans to roll out the company’s second light-class Electron rocket to its launch pad in New Zealand on Thursday for final countdown preparations, but officials have delayed liftoff to no earlier than Sunday night, U.S. time. The Electron booster, standing roughly 55 feet (17 meters) tall, could blast off from Rocket Lab’s commercial launch pad as soon as 0130 GMT Monday (8:30 p.m. EST Sunday) at the opening of a four-hour launch window. The launch opportunity opens at 2:30 p.m. Monday in New Zealand.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 9)

SPACEX SET TO LAUNCH MYSTERIOUS ZUMA SATELLITE NEXT MONTH - Zuma really isn't living up to its name, is it? Expected to launch into orbit from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on the evening of Wednesday, Nov. 15, Zuma has kept space watchers waiting for nearly three weeks to see it zoom. Instead, SpaceX -- which will be using a Falcon 9 rocket to put the reportedly Northrop Grumman-built Zuma satellite in orbit -- canceled the Nov. 15 launch, then canceled another launch date on Nov. 16, postponing that one to Nov. 17, only to cancel the following day as well. The company had stayed mum on its status ever since -- until this week.   More
(Source: Motley Fool - Dec 8)

NASA SATELLITE CAPTURES RAGING SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA FIRES FROM SPACE - Thick blankets of smoke from wildfires burning in Southern California are visible from space. An image captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Terra satellite shows large plumes of smoke streaming into the Pacific, illustrating the fires' scope and size. The fast-moving blazes, centered in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, have been fueled by dry, gusty Santa Ana winds. Three major fires are raging in Southern California.    More
(Source: Los Angeles Times - Dec 7)

GOES-S WEATHER SATELLITE ARRIVES IN FLORIDA FOR LAUNCH PREPARATIONS - NOAA’s latest weather satellite, a new-generation geostationary observatory named GOES-S, landed at the Kennedy Space Center’s former space shuttle runway Monday aboard a U.S. Air Force transport jet, ready to begin final preparations for launch March 1 on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. Cocooned in a transport container, the GOES-S weather satellite left its Lockheed Martin factory in Denver early Monday, and crews loaded the spacecraft into the cavernous cargo hold of a C-5M Super Galaxy at Buckley Air Force Base to begin the cross-country journey.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 6)

SPACEX CARGO LAUNCH TO SPACE STATION PUSHED TO TUESDAY - SpaceX's next robotic resupply mission to the International Space Station has been pushed from Friday (Dec. 8) to next Tuesday (Dec. 12) at the earliest. "This new launch date takes into account pad readiness, requirements for science payloads, space station crew availability and orbital mechanics," NASA officials wrote in an update today (Dec. 5). During the mission, SpaceX's two-stage Falcon 9 rocket will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, sending the uncrewed Dragon capsule on its way to the orbiting lab.   More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 6)

PRIVATE INFLATABLE HABITAT WILL STAY AT SPACE STATION FOR AT LEAST 3 MORE YEARS - The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) will stay attached to the International Space Station through at least 2020, NASA announced yesterday (Dec. 4). BEAM, which is owned by the Las Vegas-based company Bigelow Aerospace, launched toward the orbiting lab in compact form aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule in April 2016. It was attached and expanded shortly thereafter, to test the performance of such inflatable habitats — which can provide more internal volume per unit launch mass than traditional metallic modules — in the space environment.   More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 6)

THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION IS SUPER GERMY - Thousands of species have colonized the International Space Station — and only one of them is Homo sapiens. According to a new study in the journal PeerJ, the interior surfaces of the 17-year-old, 250-mile-high, airtight space station harbor at least 1,000 and perhaps more than 4,000 microbe species — a finding that is actually “reassuring,” according to co-author David Coil. “Diversity is generally associated with a healthy ecosystem,” said the University of California at Davis microbiologist. A varied population of microscopic inhabitants is probably a signature of a healthy spacecraft, he added. And as humanity considers even longer ventures in space — such as an 18-month voyage to Mars — scientists must understand who these microbes are.    More
(Source: Washington Post - Dec 6)

CYGNUS SUPPLY SHIP READIED FOR STATION DEPARTURE - After a 22-day stay at the International Space Station, an Orbital ATK Cygnus supply ship is set for departure Wednesday en route to a higher orbit for release of 14 CubeSats for commercial weather monitoring and technology demonstrations. The cargo ship was detached from the space station's Unity module via ground commanding Tuesday, and the lab's Canadian-built robotic arm maneuvered it to a release point around 30 feet (10 meters) below the complex.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 6)

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