DEAR PRESIDENT TRUMP: HERE’S HOW TO MAKE SPACE GREAT AGAIN - President-elect Donald Trump often says that Americans no longer dream and must do so again. Nowhere can dreams be more inspiring and profitable than in space. But today, expanding space enterprise is not foremost on the minds of Americans or military strategists. As a recent CNN special showed, defense thinkers feel embattled in space, focused on protecting our existing investments rather than developing new ones that seize strategic advantage. The first step to make space great again is for the United States to offer a constructive vision that can satisfy many American space needs, including defense.   More
(Source: WIRED - Dec 15)

CHINA TO LAUNCH FIRST SATELLITE MONITORING GLOBAL EMISSIONS - A satellite that can monitor global carbon levels will be launched this month by China. The orbiting carbon observatory satellite is not only one of the best satellites of its kind, but is also the first for China. The satellite works through highly accurate detectors of cloud, aerosol and carbon monoxide, explained an employee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.   More
(Source: China.org.cn - Dec 14)

SPACEX HAS DELAYED FIRST MANNED NASA LAUNCH TO 2018 FROM 2017 - Entrepreneur Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. has decided to delay to 2018 from 2017 the first manned launch of its Dragon capsule intended to carry U.S. astronauts into orbit. The company privately reported the slippage to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration earlier this year and confirmed it on Monday. The nearly one-year delay, to the second quarter of 2018 from the spring of 2017, comes in the midst of top-priority efforts to develop new launchpad fueling procedures affecting the company’s entire fleet of Falcon 9 rockets. A company spokesman initially described it as a slip of several months, but a NASA document indicates the initial manned mission had been targeted for April 2017.    More
(Source: Wall Street Journal - Dec 14)

JAPANESE SPACESHIP MAKES CHRISTMAS DELIVERY AT SPACE STATION - It may not be a sleigh driven by a jolly old elf, but a Japanese cargo ship arrived at the International Space Station today (Dec. 13) to make a Christmas delivery to the outpost's six-person crew. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency's robotic H-II Transfer Vehicle 6, or HTV-6, was captured by station astronauts using a robotic arm at 5:37 a.m. EST (1037 GMT). A few hours later, the cargo ship and its nearly 5 tons of supplies were attached to a berthing spot for unloading later. It is JAXA's sixth unmanned cargo delivery to the station using its HTV Kounotori vehicles (the name means "white stork").   More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 14)

TECHNICAL GLITCH POSTPONES NASA SATELLITE LAUNCH - A technical problem on Monday delayed the planned launch for at least 24 hours of a series of NASA satellites designed to study hurricanes, the US space agency said. Orbital ATK's Stargazer L-1011 airplane took off as planned from Cape Canaveral with a rocket attached to its underside, but the in-air launch was foiled by a problem with the hydraulic system that appeared after takeoff. "The hydraulic system in question was not for the L-1011 aircraft itself, but for the system that allows the Pegasus XL rocket to release from the aircraft," NASA said in a statement.    More
(Source: Phys.Org - Dec 13)

SIXTH JAPANESE SPACESHIP ARRIVES TUESDAY MORNING - The six crew members aboard the International Space Station are getting ready for the arrival of new resupply ship early Tuesday. The crew is also exploring human research and physics and cleaning spacesuits. Japan’s sixth cargo craft, the Kounotori HTV-6, has been orbiting Earth and chasing the International Space Station for three days after its launch from the Tanegashima Space Center last week. It will arrive Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. EST for a robotic capture and installation to the Harmony module. NASA TV will cover the events live beginning Tuesday at 4:30 a.m. Astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet will be in the cupola Tuesday morning commanding the Canadarm2 robotic arm to grapple the HTV-6 while monitoring its approach.   More
(Source: NASA - Dec 13)

JAPAN TO CLEAN SPACE BY USING MAGNETS ON JUNK THROUGH UNMANNED CARGO - Earth gets its junk from people and other creatures that live in it. And although the universe does not have many people in it besides those in the space station and occasional visits from some landing missions, space still gets its fair share of junk. However, Japan has taken the challenge of cleaning out and removing these "space junk" by pulling them using magnets.   More
(Source: News Every day - Dec 13)

CHINA LAUNCHES NEW-GENERATION WEATHER SATELLITE - China launched a weather satellite at 12:11 a.m. Sunday, marking an upgrade of China's meteorological satellites in geostationary orbit. The Fengyun-4 satellite, the first of China's second-generation weather satellites in geostationary orbit to have been launched, is also the country's first quantitative remote-sensing satellite in high orbit. The satellite, launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province, was taken into orbit by a Long March-3B carrier rocket.   More
(Source: Xinhua - Dec 11)

HERE'S HOW NASA'S HURRICANE SATELLITE FLEET WILL WORK - Eight specialized microsatellites, slightly larger than carry-on suitcases, will launch from beneath an airplane Dec. 12 to begin monitoring hurricanes and cyclones in the tropics, piercing through rainfall to measure wind speeds at a storm's heart. Previous satellites have measured wind speed over water by shooting radio waves at the ocean and measuring how the waves scatter on the surface, indicating the wind speed. But such satellites could only monitor one site at a time, and the radio waves could be scattered when rainfall was too heavy, like deep within a hurricane.   More
(Source: Space.com - Dec 11)

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