DARPA SATELLITE-SERVICING PROJECT COMES UNDER CONGRESSIONAL FIRE - The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is being asked to reconsider a satellite-servicing demonstration mission it plans to put under contract this year. Four U.S. lawmakers complained to DARPA and the Pentagon this week that the project appears to run afoul of a national space policy that discourages the government from developing space systems and services it could otherwise buy from the private sector. DARPA’s Tactical Technology Office received proposals last year from companies wanting to collaborate with the agency on the development and demonstration of a robotic spacecraft built to service government and commercial satellites stationed in geosynchronous orbit.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Jan 27)

SPACESHIP READY FOR RELEASE AS CREW STUDIES VISION - The Expedition 50 crew is getting ready for Friday morning’s release of Japan’s sixth cargo craft to visit the International Space Station. The station residents are also continuing to explore how their eyes adapt to living in space for months at a time. The Kounotori HTV-6 resupply ship, from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, is being disconnected from station systems today as it prepares for its departure Friday at 10:30 a.m. EST. Overnight, ground controllers will operate the Canadarm2 and maneuver the HTV-6 away from the Harmony module where it is attached.   More
(Source: NASA - Jan 27)

RUSSIA SAYS TECHNICAL CHECKS MAY DELAY SOME SPACE ROCKET LAUNCHES - Russia's space agency said on Wednesday it had ordered extra checks to be made on its Proton-M rockets, meaning it might be forced to delay some satellite launches this year. Roscosmos, the Russian equivalent of NASA, made the announcement after the Kommersant daily reported that manufacturing problems had been detected in some Proton-M rockets and that some launches were likely to be delayed by several months "in a best case scenario." European, U.S. and Asian firms rely heavily on Russia to launch their commercial satellites, and a Roscosmos source told Kommersant that Moscow planned to launch 27 rockets this year, eight of which were Proton-Ms.   More
(Source: Reuters - Jan 26)

ESA TEAMS RESPOND TO DEBRIS RISK - For the past few days, experts from ESA's Space Debris Office at ESOC in Darmstadt, Germany, have been assessing a conjunction (read: collision) forecast issued by the US armed forces’ Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC) located at Vandenberg Air Force base in California. JSpOC receive data from the American space tracking radars and telescopes, among other sources, and through a long-standing data-sharing agreement, alert ESA whenever a conjunction involving one of our missions appears possible. Space debris are now one of the principle threats to orbiting satellites. We estimate that an ever-increasing cloud of more than 750 000 dangerous debris objects larger than 1 cm are in Earth orbit with the potential to damage or destroy intact satellites, creating yet more fragments.   More
(Source: ESA - Jan 26)

A PRIVATE SPACE STATION MIGHT BE BORN FROM THE ISS - What's going to happen to the International Space Station (ISS) after it is retired? While international agreements work out how long the station will last after its planned budget end in 2024, one startup private company has a vision that could build a new station on pieces of the old one. Called Axiom Space, its chief executive is Michael Suffredini, the former NASA program manager of the ISS. The company has ambitious plans to send up a module in 2020 to attach to the space station, then to remove that module when the space station program ends. Depending on what the partners want, Axiom could even remove pieces of the ISS along with its own module.   More
(Source: Seeker - Jan 26)

SPACE JUNK COULD TAKE OUT A EUROPEAN SATELLITE THIS WEEK - A European Space Agency satellite risks colliding with a piece of space debris about 15 centimeters (a half-foot) long this week, forcing ESA's flight control to plan a rare evasive maneuver. A piece of an old Russian satellite called Cosmos-375 is forecast to miss Swarm-B, one of ESA's three Swarm satellites that measure Earth's magnetic fields, by just over the length of a football field. But the margin of error for that forecast is around 1,000 meters (3,280 feet or more like three football fields).   More
(Source: CNET - Jan 25)

TRUMP’S FCC CHAIRMAN FAVORS SIMPLER SATELLITE LICENSING RULES - U.S. President Donald Trump on Jan. 23 named Ajit Pai, a Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission who favors simplifying satellite licensing rules, as the nation’s top telecom regulator. Pai, 44, replaces Tom Wheeler, who stepped down Jan. 20 as FCC chairman. Pai’s appointment does not require Senate confirmation because he was confirmed in 2012 when then-President Barack Obama nominated the former Verizon attorney to serve as one of the FCC’s five commissioners.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Jan 25)

JAPAN PUTS ITS FIRST MILITARY COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE INTO ORBIT - A Japanese H-2A rocket took off Tuesday with a communications satellite to relay messages and commands among the country’s defense forces, part of a $1.1 billion program to reduce Japan’s reliance on commercial and international providers to connect its military units. The 174-foot-tall (53-meter) launcher blasted off at 0744 GMT (2:44 a.m. EST; 4:44 p.m. Japan Standard Time) Tuesday, flying on its 32nd mission since 2001, and its 11th launch with a defense-related payload for the Japanese government.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 25)

WITH 103 SATELLITES, ISRO’S SHOWPIECE LAUNCH MAY EARN IT MASSIVE SATELLITE BUSINESS - The Indian Space Research Organisation is galloping in the commercial satellite launch sector and is on its way to break a massive space record. ISRO’s trusted Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle platform will launch 100 foreign and three Indian satellites in a single launch this February. The launch will set the space agency apart from its competitors and strengthen ISRO’s image as a reliable satellite launch service The Indian space agency will comfortably break the record previously held by the Russian Dnepr rocket–a transformed inter-continental ballistic missile–which launched 37 satellites into orbit in 2014.   More
(Source: The Indian Express - Jan 24)

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