HOW NASA KEPT THE ISS FLYING WHILE HARVEY HIT MISSION CONTROL - In the days before Harvey hit Texas, flight controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center outside of Houston had a decision to make: should they evacuate or ride out the storm at the agency’s Mission Control Center? The dilemma wasn’t just about the safety of the flight controllers. These personnel are tasked with flying the International Space Station — a round-the-clock job that can’t be done just anywhere. If there’s a gap in ground communication, it could put the astronauts in danger. “It’s 100 percent the flight controllers on the ground flying the space station,” Zebulon Scoville, NASA’s lead flight director of Expedition 52 for the International Space Station, tells The Verge. “If that capability is lost, then that can be a risk to the mission.” More (Source: The Verge - Sep 2)
PSLV LAUNCH OF NAVIGATION SATELLITE FAILS - An Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) failed to place a navigation satellite into its planned orbit Aug. 31 when the rocket’s payload fairing failed to deploy. The PSLV, flying a mission designated PSLV-C39, lifted off on schedule at 9:30 a.m. Eastern from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on the east coast of India. Initial phases of the launch appeared to go as planned, but observers noted that, as the flight progressed, the vehicle appeared to deviate from its planned trajectory according to telemetry displays shown during the webcast. More (Source: SpaceNews - Sep 1)
IT LOOKS LIKE YET ANOTHER SATELLITE IS BREAKING APART AT GEO - On August 26, the Indonesia based, state-owned satellite operator PT Telkom disclosed an "anomaly" in the pointing of its satellite in geostationary orbit. Company officials said that although they and contractor Lockheed Martin expected to restore service to the satellite, they were moving customers to another satellite as a precautionary measure. However, new evidence gathered by a US-based firm that tracks objects in geostationary orbit, ExoAnalytic Solutions, suggests the satellite may be falling apart. More (Source: Ars Technica - Sep 1)
DREAM CHASER SPACE PLANE MAKES CRUCIAL LEAP TOWARD ORBITAL FLIGHTS - Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser spacecraft completed a successful captive-carry test (in which the craft is suspended from another vehicle during flight) today (Aug. 30) at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in California's Mojave Desert. The flight test was a crucial step toward using the space vehicle for orbital flights to the International Space Station. Attached with a 200-foot-long (61 meters) cable to a Columbia 234-UT helicopter, a test model of the Dream Chaser lifted off at 7:21 a.m. PDT (10:21 a.m. EDT/1421 GMT). The two vehicles flew over Rogers Dry Lake for 1 hour and 41 minutes before landing (with Dream Chaser's gear extended) at 9:02 a.m. PDT (12:02 p.m. EDT/1602 GMT). More (Source: Space.com - Sep 1)
HIGH-RES SATELLITES WANT TO TRACK HUMAN ACTIVITY FROM SPACE - Hopkinsville, Kentucky, is normally a mid-size town, home to 32,000 people and a big bowling ball manufacturer. But on August 21, its human density more than tripled, as around 100,000 people swarmed toward the total solar eclipse. Hundreds of miles above the crowd, high-resolution satellites stared down, snapping images of the sprawl. These satellites belong to a company called DigitalGlobe, and their cameras are sharp enough to capture a book on a coffee table. But at that high resolution, they can only image that book (or the Kentucky crowd) at most twice a day. More (Source: WIRED - Aug 30)
HURRICANE HARVEY CAUSING HUGE PROBLEMS FOR INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - Houston, we have a problem 250 miles above Earth. And it’s because the astronauts about the International Space Station can’t send down imagery of Hurricane Harvey, because they’re supposed to send it to NASA’s Johnson Space Center near Houston, where the storm has dumped feet of rain in the last few days. “All right, you guys have got photos of Harvey on SSC-21 if you like,” an astronaut called down, according to CBS News. More (Source: BABW News - Aug 30)
SES SWITCHES SPACEX AND ARIANESPACE LAUNCHES TO MITIGATE COST OF SATELLITE FAILURE - Satellite fleet operator SES, which this year has suffered both predictable satellite-launch delays and unpredictable satellite failures, on Aug. 28 said it would move a satellite from launch-service provider SpaceX to Arianespace to minimize revenue losses. As a result, the SES-14 satellite will launch aboard an Ariane 5 ECA rocket early in Q1 of next year rather than a less-clear Q1 launch date offered by SpaceX. SpaceX instead will launch the heavier SES-12 satellite, up to now slated for an Ariane 5, on a Falcon 9 vehicle in Q1 2018. More (Source: Space Intel Report - Aug 29)
NASA TRACKS HARVEY'S RAINFALL, SAFEGUARDS JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE - NASA is monitoring Tropical Storm Harvey as it moves back into the Gulf of Mexico this morning (Aug. 28) after causing heavy rains and severe flooding across Texas and Louisiana this past weekend. Harvey initially hit the Texas coast as a Category 4 hurricane on Friday (Aug. 25). NASA's aptly named Aqua satellite — "aqua" is Latin for "water" — has been gathering data that has helped scientists identify the clouds within the tropical storm that are capable of generating heavy rainfall. On Sunday (Aug. 27), NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston was closed to everyone except mission-critical staff due to the flooding. More (Source: Space.com - Aug 29)
MINOTAUR 4 LAUNCH TIMELINE WITH THE ORS-5 SATELLITE - Track the major events during the Minotaur 4 rocket’s 28-minute climb into a unique equatorial orbit with the ORS-5 space surveillance satellite for the U.S. military’s Operationally Responsive Space office. Standing around eight stories tall, the five-stage rocket is set for liftoff during a four-hour launch window opening at 11:15 p.m. EDT Friday (0315 GMT) Saturday from Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Here is a diagram of the Minotaur 4’s flight sequence, and a list of major events during the rocket’s ascent into space. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 28)
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