DRAGON CAPSULE SPLASHES DOWN IN PACIFIC WITH SPACE STATION CARGO - Returning home from more than a month in orbit, a SpaceX Dragon supply ship departed the International Space Station and parachuted into the Pacific Ocean on Sunday with nearly two tons of research specimens and hardware, including mice sent up to investigate how spaceflight affects eyesight and locomotion. Wrapping up the 12th successful round-trip Dragon mission in 13 tries, the automated spaceship splashed down in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Los Angeles around 10:15 a.m. EDT (7:15 a.m. PDT; 1415 GMT) after a final descent under three main parachutes.    More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 19)

CHINESE SPACE STATION FREIGHTER CONCLUDES REFUELING DEMO MISSION - China’s Tianzhou 1 freighter, a pathfinder for regular resupply and refueling trips to the country’s planned space station, wrapped up a series of successful propellant transfer tests with the orbiting Tiangong 2 space lab Saturday and detached from the module for more standalone experiments and a destructive re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. Chinese space officials said in a statement that the Tianzhou 1 refueling and resupply craft completed its third transfer of propellant to the Tiangong 2 mini-space station in orbit at 0817 GMT (4:17 a.m. EDT) Saturday...   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 19)

CHINA’S OUT-OF-CONTROL TIANGONG-1 SPACE STATION TO CRASH BACK TO EARTH EARLY 2018 - An out-of-control spacecraft will come crashing down to Earth sometime in January or February 2018, a new calculation predicts. China announced it had lost control of the Tiangong-1 space station in September 2016 and initially thought the spacecraft would fall back to Earth in “late 2017.” Since then, refined estimates have put the date of re-entry at some point between December 2017 and March 2018.   More
(Source: Newsweek - Sep 19)

NORTHROP GRUMMAN TO ACQUIRE ORBITAL ATK - Northrop Grumman will acquire Orbital ATK in a $9.2 billion deal announced Sept. 18 that will give the combined company complementary capabilities in space and defense systems. Under the terms of the deal, Northrop Grumman will pay $7.8 billion in cash and assume $1.4 billion in debt to acquire Orbital ATK. Northrop Grumman is paying $134.50 per share of Orbital ATK stock, a premium of more than 20 percent over the stock’s price of $110 per share at the close of trading Sept. 15. News of the deal was first reported Sept. 17 by the Wall Street Journal.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Sep 19)

CHINA TO LAUNCH FOUR BEIDOU-3 SATELLITES BY THE END OF 2017 - China-based Beidou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) vice chief designer Ran Chengqi on Saturday said that four Beidou-3 satellites will be launched by late 2017 and a complete global satellites navigation system will be in place around 2020. The BDS was independently developed and operated by China with a vision to meet the needs of the country's national security and economic and social development. As a space infrastructure of national significance, the BDS provides all-time, all-weather and high-accuracy positioning, navigation and timing services to global users.   More
(Source: Doordarshan - Sep 18)

IRAN RELAUNCHES SPACE AMBITIONS AFTER UPROAR OVER SATELLITES - Iran's on-off space programme has received a boost after a recent satellite launch was seen to annoy Washington, with Tehran dusting off plans for a manned mission, perhaps with Moscow's assistance. "Ten skilled pilots are currently undergoing difficult and intensive training so that two of them... can be selected for the space launch," the head of the science ministry's aerospace research centre, Fathollah Omi, told the state broadcaster last week. He said the plan was to put humans into suborbital space "in less than eight years".   More
(Source: Geo News, Pakistan - Sep 17)

INDIA TO RESUME SATELLITE LAUNCHES BY DECEMBER - India will resume launching satellites in November or December, unfazed by the failure of its rocket in deploying a spare navigation satellite in the Earth's lower orbit on August 31, said a top official on Friday. "We will resume the launches by November or December, with one of the remote sensing satellites though we are yet to finalise with which," said A.S. Kiran Kumar, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).   More
(Source: Times Now - Sep 17)

NASA TV BROADCASTS DRAGON RELEASE EARLY SUNDAY - NASA Television coverage of the departure of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft from the International Space Station is set to begin early Sunday morning, Sept. 17 at 4:30 a.m. EDT. Watch the spacecraft departure live at http://www.nasa.gov/live Dragon has been loaded with more than 3,800 pounds of cargo and research to be returned to Earth and its internal hatch closed. The spacecraft is targeted for release at 4:40 a.m.   More
(Source: NASA - Sep 17)

NASA'S ROBOTIC 'SNIFFER' CONFIRMS SPACE STATION LEAK, REPAIR - In recent operations on the International Space Station, robotic operators were twice able to test and confirm the ability of the Robotic External Leak Locator (RELL) to "smell" in space. Using the RELL instruments, operators successfully located a small leak from the station's ammonia coolant loop, and confirmed that it was not a safety concern. Later they were able to return and more precisely characterize the leak. This valuable data helped station operators vent and isolate the leaking line from the coolant loop and successfully stop the leak.    More
(Source: Phys.org - Sep 16)

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