FIRST FEMALE SPACE STATION COMMANDER TAKES HELM AGAIN: WATCH LIVE TODAY - This morning (April 9), NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson will become the first woman to twice command the International Space Station, taking command before three space fliers return to Earth. You can watch both events live here at Space.com. Whitson became the first female space station commander during Expedition 16 in 2008, and she will step back into that role today at 10:40 a.m. EDT (1440 GMT) during a change-of-command ceremony. In between, there has been one other female space station commander, Sunita Williams. Whitson will take over from NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, who is about to depart the station. You can watch the ceremony live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV. More (Source: Space.com - Apr 10)
SYRIA MISSILE ATTACK: SATELLITE PHOTOS SHOW MAJOR DAMAGE TO AIRFIELDS - show major damage to airfields Published April 07, 2017 FoxNews.com Facebook Twitter livefyre Email Print Now Playing Drone footage, satellite images reveal damage to Syrian base Satellite images released Friday of the Syrian air base that was pounded with 59 U.S. Tomahawk missiles show large-scale destruction to airfields, planes and fueling facilities allegedly used by the Assad regime to mount chemical weapons attacks. However, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Syrian warplanes were able to take off from the base and carry out airstrikes in the countryside near Homs. More (Source: Fox News - Apr 8)
SEE A LOST THERMAL SHIELD ZIP AHEAD OF THE SPACE STATION - Last week, NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson set a new record for spacewalks by a female astronaut when she and International Space Station commander Shane Kimbrough floated outside the ISS. During the spacewalk, a thermal shield meant to be installed on the station got loose and floated away. Dutch astronomer Marco Langbroek managed to catch an impressive video of the shield cruising ahead of the ISS through space. Langbroek posted the video on Wednesday. You can see the shield as a small streak of light cutting at an angle across the camera's view. More (Source: CNET - Apr 8)
RUSSIA HINTS AT PLANS TO ABANDON THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION AND BUILD RIVAL BASE WITH CHINA - RUSSIA could be planning to abandon the International Space Station and build its own with the help of China. The country’s Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, is also weighing up whether it’s necessary to have people in orbit and decide whether they could be replaced by robots. Andrei Ionin, chief analyst of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics, told Russian press that “the Russian segment of the ISS may separate from the station after 2024”. More (Source: The Sun - Apr 7)
OLD WEATHER SATELLITE HEADED TO 'GRAVEYARD ORBIT' - A satellite that's watched Earth for 20 years is retiring to a so-called graveyard orbit high above the Earth that puts out-of-commission satellites out of harm's way. Although the satellite, Meteosat-7, was only designed for about five years of use, it's sent meteorological data back to Earth for nearly two decades. Satellites in low-Earth orbit save enough fuel to redirect downward and eventually burn up in the atmosphere, to reduce crowding in active orbits. But some satellites like this retiring one, called Meteosat-7, are too high to make it to that final burn-up stage without carrying way too much extra fuel. More (Source: Space.com - Apr 6)
DR KARL: HOW DO YOU CLEAN UP 60 YEARS OF SPACE JUNK? - Whenever there is a collision between a big bit and a little bit, you get another couple of hundred little bits. Spacecraft have actually been destroyed by collisions with space junk. And the International Space Station has had plenty of close calls. It's had to move its 400-tonne bulk out of the way more than a dozen times before incoming space junk could destroy it. At other times the threat of the space junk wasn't realised until it was too late to move the Space Station. The crew had to put on their space suits and take shelter in the Soyuz re-entry space craft, ready to abandon ship and make an emergency landing on Earth. More (Source: ABC Online - Apr 5)
PHOTOS: CYGNUS SPACECRAFT READIED FOR LAUNCH TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - These photographs span March 9 through the 17th as the news media got an up-close viewing of the Orbital ATK commercial Cygnus cargo ship at Kennedy Space Center’s Payload Hazardous Processing Facility, placement aboard a mobile transporter and delivery to the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket assembly building for hoisting and mating. Cygnus is carrying 7,626 pounds of crew logitics and new science for the International Space Station, the seventh such freighter launched by Orbital ATK under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services contract. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Apr 5)
BOEING UNVEILS CONCEPT DESIGNS FOR ITS MARS TRANSPORTER AND DEEP SPACE HABITAT THAT WILL LAUNCH IN T - A new generation of space stations which will allow humanity to reach out further into the universe could become a reality within the next three years. The first base - known as the Deep Space Gateway - will orbit between Earth and the moon and is expected to launch as early as 2020. The habitat will support critical research and open up opportunities for future exploration of deep space, as well as a return to the moon and missions to Mars. Nasa has teamed up with six companies to develop deep space vehicles as part of its NextSTEP program. More (Source: Daily Mail - Apr 5)
WHERE OLD SATELLITES GO TO DIE - Meteosat-7, EUMETSAT's oldest operational meteorological satellite, tomorrow begins its final journey to the great graveyard orbit in the sky. After almost 20 years of service – a remarkable feat, given its expected lifetime of five years – a series of manoeuvres will be carried out to take the satellite out of its current geostationary orbit, 36,000km above the Earth, to its new and final resting place. So, what is the "graveyard orbit," why do we need one and how will Meteosat-7 get there? More (Source: Phys.org - Apr 4)
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