BULGARIA’S FIRST COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE HEAVED INTO ORBIT - Launching into a sun-splashed summertime afternoon sky, a previously-flown SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket climbed into orbit from Florida’s east coast Friday with a U.S.-built, Bulgarian-owned television broadcasting satellite. In a secondary objective, the Falcon 9’s first stage booster descended back to Earth and slowed down for a jarring touchdown on SpaceX’s drone ship holding position several hundred miles east of Cape Canaveral. The successful launch and landing is the first of two back-to-back Falcon 9 launches planned by SpaceX. A separate launch team is preparing a Falcon 9 rocket for liftoff Sunday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 24)
INDIAN ROCKET SET TO LAUNCH 31 SATELLITES - An Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, crowned with 31 satellites from 15 countries, is counting down to liftoff early Friday from an island spaceport on the country’s east coast. Carrying an Indian mapping satellite, an agricultural research craft built by Indian university students, and 29 secondary payloads, the 144-foot-tall (44-meter) PSLV will blast off from the First Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Center at 0359 GMT Friday (11:59 p.m. EDT Thursday). More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 23)
DEAD SATELLITES COULD BE BLASTED OUT OF ORBIT WITH POWERFUL MAGNETIC BEAMS - One scientist is working on a novel solution for knocking dead, broken satellites out of orbit so they can't cause any damage to other spacecraft: a magnetic grappling beam. The same technology could also be used to keep groups of new satellites in orbit, according to experts, which might one day enable us to combine packs of satellites flying in formation to create giant telescopes. More (Source: ScienceAlert - Jun 22)
LAUNCH OF MILITARY’S NEW SPACE-BASED SATELLITE TRACKER DELAYED TWO MONTHS - The launch from Cape Canaveral of a small U.S. military satellite built to track objects in geosynchronous orbit has been delayed from mid-July until September, an Air Force spokesperson said. The Air Force did not disclose a reason for the two-month delay, or a new target launch date for the SensorSat mission. The spokesperson said the launch is now scheduled some time between the end of August and mid-September. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 22)
RUSSIA STUDYING DEDICATED SPACE TOURISM MISSIONS USING ITS SOYUZ SPACECRAFT - Glavkosmos Director General Denis Lyskov said at the Paris Air Show Tuesday that future missions could fly two tourists and one professional cosmonaut, possibly visiting the ISS. The head of RSC Energia, meanwhile, said he thought Soyuz missions could continue to fly even after the introduction of Russia’s new Federation crew vehicle, with the Soyuz being devoted to tourism missions and possibly, with upgrades, circumlunar flights. More (Source: SpaceNews - Jun 22)
ARISS SSTV COMMEMORATIVE ACTIVITY COMING SOON - In commemoration of our 20th anniversary, the ARISS team is planning to transmit a set of 12 SSTV images that capture the accomplishments of ARISS over that time. While still to be scheduled, we anticipate the SSTV operation to occur around the weekend of July 15. We are planning for at least a 2 day operation, but are working for a potential longer operation. Note that all of this tentative and may change based on crew scheduling and ISS operations. More (Source: AMSAT - Jun 20)
UPPER STAGE MALFUNCTION LEAVES CHINESE SATELLITE IN LOWER-THAN-PLANNED ORBIT - An upper stage malfunction has left a Chinese satellite in a lower-than-planned orbit after a launch Sunday. The Long March 3B lifted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center at 12:12 p.m. Eastern carrying the Chinasat-9A satellite. It was not until early Monday, though, that Chinese officials announced that the third stage of the rocket malfunctioned, leaving the satellite in a lower orbit than planned. More (Source: SpaceNews - Jun 20)
SES’S AMC-9 SATELLITE DRIFTING AFTER ANOMALY - SES is moving customers off a 14-year-old geostationary communications satellite that’s drifting in orbit following a “significant anomaly” discovered over the weekend. “SES has taken immediate action in contacting all customers and is working to transfer services to alternative satellite capacity in order to minimize disruption,” the company said in a June 19 statement. Most of that traffic is being switched to other SES satellites, according to SES spokesperson Markus Payer, but might involve teaming up with other satellite operators where an SES substitute won’t fit. He declined to say how much of AMC-9’s capacity was in use at the time of the anomaly. More (Source: SpaceNews - Jun 20)
LONG MARCH 3B LOFTS CHINASAT 9A – MISSION SUCCESS UNKNOWN - Three days after the successful launch of the Huiyan (HXMT) X-ray space telescope, China was back in action with the launch of a new communications satellite from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. Launch of Zhongxing-9A (also designated ChinaSat-9A) took place at 16:08 UTC using a Long March-3B/G2 (Chang Zheng-3B/G2) launch vehicle from the LC2 launch complex. However, there wasn’t any official Chinese statement of mission success raising questions on the status of the spacecraft. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Jun 19)
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