SPACEWALKING ASTRONAUTS PREP SPACE STATION TO DOCK WITH COMMERCIAL SPACESHIPS - Two astronauts wandered outside the confines of the International Space Station today (March 24), embarking on the first of three spacewalks scheduled to take place over the next few weeks. European Space Agency astronaut and flight engineer Thomas Pesquet led the way when he emerged from the station's Quest Airlock at 7:22 a.m. EDT (1122 GMT). NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, commander of the station's Expedition 50 crew, popped out of the airlock shortly after, and the two spacewalkers parted ways to carry out separate tasks around the orbiting lab. While Kimbrough breezed through his to-do list with enough time left for a "get-ahead" task, Pesquet's tasks kept him busy the entire time. More (Source: Space.com - Mar 26)
FIRST MADE-IN-ALBERTA SATELLITE GETS GROUNDED — AGAIN - The fate of a University of Alberta satellite is up in the air, but not in the way students involved in the project would like. The launch of the AlbertaSat team's Ex-Alta 1 satellite had originally been scheduled for March 16, then March 19, and then March 24. Now it's been delayed indefinitely. "Right now the satellite is sitting inside of a capsule on top of the Atlas V rocket in Florida at Cape Canaveral, waiting to launch to the International Space Station," said project manager Charles Nokes. More (Source: CBC.ca - Mar 25)
THE JOURNEY OF NASA’S SMARTEST SATELLITE FINALLY COMES TO AN END - NASA’s highly experimental Earth Observing-1 satellite mission was supposed to last just a year. It did that, and then survived 16 more—all the while testing NASA’s riskiest, oddball ideas. It’s been a proving ground for everything from multi- and hyperspectral imagers, to a self-piloting AI. But EO-1 is finally out of fuel, and at the end of the month the craft’s operating team will close up shop. Already out of fuel, EO-1 itself will continue to slowly shuffle off its orbital coil until it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere. More (Source: Wired - Mar 25)
CYGNUS SPACECRAFT LAUNCH TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION DELAYED AGAIN - The launch of the OA-7 Cygnus cargo spacecraft carrying new supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) has been postponed again, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) has announced. Earlier this week, ULA said that the launch was planned for March 27. Previously, it was set for March 24, after having been postponed from the original scheduled date of March 19. One of the previous delays was caused by booster hydraulic issues discovered during pre-launch testing. Last week, ULA said that its team needed additional time to replace and retest a first stage hudraulic component. More (Source: Sputnik International - Mar 24)
THREE SPACEWALKS, CARGO LAUNCH ON TAP FOR SPACE STATION - NASA is gearing up for an intense few weeks of work aboard the International Space Station, staging three spacewalks, moving a docking port from one module to another to support commercial crew ferry ships and capturing an Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship carrying nearly 4 tons of equipment and supplies. Launch of the Cygnus spacecraft atop an Atlas 5 rocket had been planned for Monday, but late in the day Wednesday, United Launch Alliance announced a delay pending resolution of an unspecified problem with the booster’s hydraulic system. More (Source: CBS News - Mar 24)
CONGRESS MULLS OPTIONS FOR SPACE STATION BEYOND 2024 - The United States' ability to send astronauts to Mars in the mid-2030s depends in part on cutting back or ending government funding for the International Space Station (ISS) after 2024, the head of a congressional subcommittee that oversees NASA said Wednesday (March 22). "We ought to be aware that remaining on the ISS [after 2024] will come at a cost," U.S. Rep. Brian Babin, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Science and Technology's Subcommittee on Space, said during a hearing about options and impacts for station operations beyond 2024. More (Source: Space.com - Mar 24)
INSIDE THE NANOSAT LAB - TINY SATELLITES, BIG AMBITIONS - The Nanosat Lab at the State University of New York at Buffalo is thrumming like a beehive. More than 100 excited, exhausted undergraduates are very hard at work on a volunteer project: building three tiny satellites. The students are nervously anticipating the arrival of their customers—the U.S. Air Force and NASA—whose reviewers will judge their progress and the quality of their work. One of the satellites—the Glint Analyzing Data Observation Satellite, or GLADOS—is about to undergo what’s called a pre-integration review. “It’s kind of our pass/fail,” says junior Maura Sutherland, the lab’s chief of public relations. If the students pass, the satellite will move one step closer to launch. If not, well, pass/fail offers only one other option. More (Source: Air & Space Magazine - Mar 23)
PRESIDENT TRUMP SIGNS NASA AUTHORIZATION BILL - President Donald Trump has signed the NASA Transition Authorization Act of 2017, which sets a $19.5 billion budget for the agency for fiscal year 2017. The bill — S.442 — is the first NASA authorization bill to reach a U.S. president's desk since 2010. Trump signed the bill into law today (March 21) during a televised ceremony in the Oval Office. He was joined by NASA astronauts Tracy Caldwell Dyson and Chris Cassidy, who presented the commander in chief with a NASA flight jacket. Following the signing, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the White House will re-establish a National Space Council. More (Source: Space.com - Mar 23)
ATLAS 5 ROCKET AIMS FOR FRIDAY NIGHT LAUNCH TO SEND SUPPLIES TO SPACE STATION - Officials have accepted a Friday launch date for a commercial cargo ship to the International Space Station after Range availability scuttled notions of moving up the Atlas 5 flight by a day. The United Launch Alliance booster will haul Orbital ATK’s Cygnus automated resupply freighter into low-Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral. A Thursday launch had been considered, but the Eastern Range was unavailable that day due to unrelated SpaceX mission testing on the Space Coast. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Mar 22)
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