MICHIBIKI SATELLITES AIM TO PROVIDE ‘JAPANESE GPS’ - Billed as a domestically developed version of the Global Positioning System, the Quasi-Zenith Satellite System (QZSS) Michibiki No. 2 satellite will be launched on Thursday from the Tanegashima Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture. The government plans to launch Michibiki satellites Nos. 3 and 4 within the year to establish a global positioning system with world-class accuracy. It hopes that the satellites will be utilized in a wide range of areas, including transport navigation during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. Michibiki is a type of satellite developed to transmit radio waves toward the ground to supply accurate positioning data. It flies in a quasi-zenith orbit above the nation and its radio waves can be received even in mountainous areas or between tall buildings. More (Source: The Japan News - May 29)
CHINA LAUNCHES SATELLITE NAVIGATION POSITIONING SYSTEM - China on Sunday launched a national satellite navigation and positioning system which will provide positioning service to transportation, emergency medical rescue and city planning and management. It is the largest in the country and boasts the widest coverage, officials said. Li Weisen, deputy director of the National Administration of Surveying, Mapping and Geoinformation, said that the system consists of 2,700 base stations, a national database centre and 30 provincial level database centres. More (Source: Indian Express - May 28)
EX-ALTA 1, A SATELLITE MADE IN ALBERTA, IS NOW ORBITING EARTH - The first satellite designed and built in Alberta is now officially orbiting the Earth. Early Friday morning, Ex-Alta 1 deployed from the International Space Station into orbit. The satellite was built and designed by students at the University of Alberta. The cube satellite was sent into space along with others as part of the QB50 ("cube 50") Mission to create an international network of small satellites that will gather data on the lower thermosphere and space weather. Ex-Alta 1 is the only Canadian satellite in the project. More (Source: Huffington Post Canada - May 28)
LAUNCH OF SPACE-DEBRIS-REMOVAL EXPERIMENT DELAYED DUE TO SAFETY REVIEWS - RemoveDebris, a space-junk-wrangling spacecraft once slated to hitch a ride to the International Space Station with SpaceX in June, won’t launch until the end of 2017 or early 2018 to allow additional NASA safety reviews, according to the European project’s manager. The 100-kilogram spacecraft, developed by a consortium of 10 European companies including Airbus Defense and Space and Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd., would be the largest and heaviest satellite deployed from the ISS. More (Source: SpaceNews - May 27)
WHO WILL BUILD THE WORLD’S FIRST COMMERCIAL SPACE STATION? - Michael Suffredini has big business plans for low Earth orbit. After a decade as NASA’s program manager for the International Space Station (ISS) he retired from the agency in September 2015 to pursue opportunities in the private sector, convinced that a golden age of commercial spaceflight was dawning. Partnering with Kam Ghaffarian, CEO of SGT, the company that operates the ISS for NASA and also trains America’s astronauts, Suffredini co-founded Axiom Space in early 2016. As Axiom’s president, Suffredini’s goal is simple: to build and fly the world’s first private space station, using the ISS as a springboard. More (Source: Scientific American - May 27)
HISPASAT 36W 1 SATELLITE NOW OPERATIONAL IN ORBIT - The Hispasat 36W 1 satellite is now located at its final orbital position at 36 degrees west, and over the next few days will begin to offer its telecommunications services after having successfully completed in-orbit testing. This new satellite offers coverage over South America and Europe, including the Canary Islands, and has 20 Ku-band transponders as well as additional Ka-band capacity. More (Source: Satellite Today - May 27)
AUSTRALIAN SATELLITE IN ORBIT - The first Australian satellite in 15 years, UNSW-EC0, was successfully deployed from the International Space Station, and UNSW engineers are working to make contact when it next passes above Sydney. The first Australian satellite in 15 years, UNSW-EC0, was successfully deployed from the International Space Station, but the UNSW engineers who built it were unable to establish contact when it made its first pass above Sydney. However, engineers say there could be many reasons for the silence and they are not overly concerned. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-05-australian-satellite-orbit.html#jCp More (Source: Phys.org - May 27)
A NASA SATELLITE JUST CAUGHT THIS AWESOME SOLAR ECLIPSE FROM SPACE - There’s a satellite hovering over the tropical Pacific near South America whose only job is to monitor the sun. It sounds simple, but its mission is complex: to investigate how the sun’s magnetic field is generated, how it’s structured and what happens when it burps magnetic energy out into space — sometimes straight toward Earth. Our star is active, complex and sometimes threatening, and the Solar Dynamics Observatory is one of just a few ways scientists are able to monitor it. On Thursday afternoon, the SDO saw something much more simple than solar irradiance fluctuations or extreme ultraviolet variability — the moon blocking out the sun in a solar eclipse only visible from the satellite. More (Source: Washington Post - May 27)
MAIDEN FLIGHT OF ROCKET LAB’S SMALL SATELLITE LAUNCHER REACHES SPACE - The debut launch of Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket from a privately-operated base in New Zealand made it to space Thursday, proving the performance of major parts of the booster before faltering short of the velocity it needed to enter orbit, the company said in a statement. The U.S.-New Zealand company said data from the test flight will help refine the Electron launcher for future demonstrations before it enters commercial service hauling small satellites to orbit. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 26)
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