ARIANESPACE CAPS YEAR WITH ARIANE 5 LAUNCH OF STAR ONE D1 AND JCSAT-15 - European launch provider Arianespace completed its 11th and final launch of the year Dec. 21, putting satellites for Asia’s and South America’s largest regional operators on their way to the geostationary arc. The Ariane 5 rocket lifted off from Europe’s Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana, at 3:30 p.m. EST carrying Embratel Star One of Brazil’s multiband Star One D1 satellite and Japan-based Sky Perfect JSAT’s JCSat-15. Space Systems Loral built both satellites, which collectively weighed in at 9,833 kilograms. Star One D1, which had a liftoff mass of 6,433 kilograms, used the Ariane 5’s upper berth, while the 3,400 kilogram JCSat-15 took the lower position in the dual launch. More (Source: SpaceNews.com - Dec 22)
RESEARCH PLATFORM LAUNCHED TO BRAVE VAN ALLEN RADIATION BELTS - Japan launched a research satellite Tuesday to repeatedly fly through the Van Allen belts high above Earth, helping scientists sort out how chaotic geomagnetic storms form and evolve and potentially endanger astronauts, spacecraft and infrastructure vital to life on the ground. The compact, cube-shaped spacecraft took off on top of an Epsilon booster at 1100 GMT (6 a.m. EST; 8 p.m. Japan Standard Time) Tuesday, launching toward the east from a hillside rocket complex the Uchinoura Space Center on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. The 85-foot-tall (26-meter) launcher climbed into the night sky atop a half-million pounds of thrust from its first stage, a solid-fueled rocket motor derived from the strap-on booster from Japan’s heavier-duty H-2A rocket. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 21)
TIMELINE: ATLAS 5/ECHOSTAR 19 ASCENT - This is the launch timeline to be followed by the Atlas 5 rocket’s ascent into orbit from Cape Canaveral with the EchoStar 19 satellite for HughesNet’s direct-to-home Internet connectivity. Launch is scheduled for Sunday at 1:27 p.m. EST (1827 GMT). With the RD-180 main engine running, the three strap-on solid rocket boosters are lit as the Atlas 5 vehicle lifts off and begins a vertical rise away from Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 20)
"SMALL SATELLITES" EXPLODE IN POPULARITY -- AND SIZE - Small satellites are turning into big business. Since the Soviet Union opened the Space Age with its launch of Sputnik in 1957, the population of satellites in Earth orbit has swelled to more than 4,250. Of these, fully 291 -- or 7% -- are so-called small satellites. According to Denver-based "space law" firm Sherman & Howard, there's actually no single definition for what constitutes a small satellite, or "smallsat." More (Source: Fox Business - Dec 19)
ATLAS 5 ROCKET LAUNCHES SATELLITE TO BRING HIGH-SPEED INTERNET TO MORE AMERICANS - The world’s highest capacity broadband satellite, a craft that will connect rural America to high-speed Internet service, successfully rocketed into space today aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 booster. With a 2-to-1 thrust-to-weight ratio, the million-pound rocket unleashed two-million pounds of ground-shaking thrust to power away from its seaside launch complex at 2:13 p.m. EST (1913 GMT). The 194-foot-tall rocket, with its main engine and three side-mounted boosters all burning, left Cape Canaveral behind quickly to break through the sound barrier and pass the region of maximum air pressure in less than a minute. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 19)
ULA’S ATLAS V TO LAUNCH FROM CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION TODAY AT 1:27 P.M. - United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V EchoStar 19 is set to launch this Sunday from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch window opens at 1:27 p.m. and closes at 3:27 p.m., and you can watch the launch live on Space Coast Daily TV. The Atlas V rocket (designated AV-071) will be carrying the EchoStar 19/Jupiter 2 communications satellite. The satellite will provide high-speed internet services for HughesNet throughout North America. More (Source: SpaceCoastDaily.com - Dec 18)
SPACE JUNK SOLUTION? JAPAN WOULD USE A TETHER TO NAB DEBRIS & DESTROY IT - The Japanese space agency will soon be testing a new technology that would use a roughly half-mile-long tether to grab large pieces of space debris and dispose of them. The proposed technology (first announced in 2014) would include a spacecraft that would deploy a 700-meter-long (2,296 feet) electrodynamic tether (EDT) and guide it toward a piece of space junk. The tether would latch onto the orbiting hunk of trash, and the operating spacecraft would then drag the debris down into the incinerator of Earth's atmosphere (causing the operating spacecraft to burn up as well). More (Source: Space.com - Dec 17)
'GOVERNOR MOONBEAM' VOWS TO LAUNCH 'OWN DAMN SATELLITE' IF DONALD TRUMP IGNORES CLIMATE CHANGE - With his latest cabinet picks, Donald Trump has strongly signaled that his administration will do little to combat climate change, which he once called a hoax invented by the Chinese. If the President-elect tries to stop climate research, however, California’s Governor has promised to fight him at every turn. In a barnburner speech on Wednesday, Governor Jerry Brown vowed to defy any attempt by the future President to “mess with” the state’s earth science programs, telling a group of geophysicists in San Francisco, “We will persevere.” More (Source: Gizmodo - Dec 16)
SATELLITE THAT WILL BEAM HIGH-SPEED INTERNET ACROSS AMERICA READY TO LAUNCH - A sophisticated communications satellite launches into orbit atop an Atlas 5 rocket Sunday to bring residential high-speed Internet to parts of the U.S. that must look to space for connectivity. Getting EchoStar 19 aloft begins with a ride to super-synchronous transfer orbit atop the United Launch Alliance rocket, departing from Cape Canaveral at 1:27 p.m. EST (1827 GMT). The daily launch window extends for exactly two hours. With a thrust-to-weight ratio of 2-to-1, the million-pound rocket will race off the launch pad on two million pounds of thrust and head eastward toward orbit. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 16)
Previous Next
