SIMULATION SHOWS HOW SPACE JUNK SPREADS AFTER A SATELLITE BREAKS UP - Whether it's a satellite breaking up or the detritus of a launch, the whole space community agrees that space junk is a huge problem. After all, even a fleck of paint can make a noticeable dent in the International Space Station's windows. Tracking space debris is a lot easier if you know where to look, so US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) boffin Dr Liam Healy's done just that. In a video posted by the NRL, Healy's simulation shows the expanding cloud of debris from a disintegrating satellite. (It's interesting to observe that the spot where the disintegration starts gets the least amount of debris.)   More
(Source: The Register - Oct 4)

WAS MYSTERIOUS ‘MAN-MADE’ FIREBALL SPOTTED OVER BRITAIN THE WRECKAGE OF A RUNAWAY CHINESE SATELLITE? - A bright fireball scorched through British skies last night, prompting stargazers to claim it was the wreckage of a runaway Chinese satellite. The “unusual” meteor was travelling too slowly to be a space rock and appeared to have broken into two parts as it entered Earth’s atmosphere. The ‘unusual’ object was visible across southern Britain.   More
(Source: The Sun - Oct 4)

SEE HURRICANE MATTHEW LIVE FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - Watch the view from space as massive Hurricane Matthew churns in the Caribbean sea before making landfall tonight. NOAA issued a Hurricane Watch for Jamaica, Haiti, several Cuban provinces and the Southeastern Bahamas, as those areas brace for flood rains, storm surges, mudslides and high winds. Matthew is expected to approach southwestern Haiti tonight--where 40 inches of rainfall is expected according to NOAA and NASA reports--then reach western Haiti and eastern Cuba tomorrow morning. The storm's slow track makes it particularly dangerous--although winds are sustained at 140 mph, its lumbering track north is moving at only 6 mph.   More
(Source: Popular Science - Oct 4)

ARIANE 5 TO SEND A DUO OF COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES INTO ORBIT - Arianespace is all set to conduct its eighth mission of the year, which will send two communications satellites into space atop the company’s workhorse Ariane 5 booster. Liftoff will take place from the Ariane Launch Complex № 3 (ELA-3) in Kourou, French Guiana. The 45-minute launch window starts at 5:30 p.m. local time (4:30 p.m. EDT; 20:30 GMT) on Tuesday, Oct. 4. The mission, designated VA231, will deliver GSAT-18 and Sky Muster II (also known as NBN-Co 1B) commsats into a geostationary orbit. The flight will last one hour and 22 minutes, with the Sky Munster II being released at 28-and-a-half minutes after launch and GSAT-18 being deployed some four minutes later.    More
(Source: SpaceFlight Insider - Oct 3)

IT’S A NEW SPACE AGE FOR SATELLITE BUILDERS - The space age is getting crowded. A wave of commercial entities—perhaps best exemplified by Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX—has transformed the industry, making it cheaper and easier to get into space. The umbrella term “New Space” has been coined to describe the approach taken by these companies. Patrick Wood, chief executive of Surrey Satellite Technologies Ltd., or SSTL, sees his company as one of the pioneers of the New Space movement. The British company, which was spun out of the University of Surrey in 1985, designs, manufactures and operates small satellites, which typically weigh less than 1,100 pounds, for customers in a number of areas, from military to navigation and telecommunications. The company can also manufacture technology and subsystems that customers can integrate into their own satellites, to gather data, for example.   More
(Source: Wall Street Journal - Oct 3)

SPACEX SETS A DATE TO RETURN TO ORBIT FOLLOWING FALCON 9 EXPLOSION - It's been less than a month since SpaceX saw a test firing before a planned Falcon 9 launch end in a ball of fire before it even got started. Now, the company appears ready to get back on the orbital horse with plans for its next launch set for as soon as November. On September 1, a Falcon 9 set to carry a new satellite meant to be part of Facebook's Internet.org initiative to orbit was standing upright on a launch pad at Cape Canaveral. As it was being fuelled for a static fire test, it suffered an "anomaly." In other words, it was destroyed in a huge explosion that could be seen and heard for miles around. SpaceX put all planned launches on hold and three weeks later, preliminary results from an investigation into the cause of the explosion pointed to a rupture in the cryogenic helium system.    More
(Source: New Atlas - Oct 2)

WHAT IT'S LIKE TO WORK IN SPACE, USING BULKY EVA GLOVES - Tightening a lug nut on the tire of your car in the driveway seems like an easy enough task, but imagine trying to do it while wearing incredibly bulky gloves and working in the vacuum of space. Still sound easy? That is what a day's work entails for astronauts working outside the International Space Station. A simple task that would otherwise take 5 minutes to complete on Earth can take hours in space. I had the opportunity to experience a simulation of what it is like for astronauts working in space. I tested out an EVA (extravehicular activity) glove simulator operated by NASA's Langley Research Center at "Star Trek": Mission New York earlier this month. The EVA glove simulator challenged users to put the top on a plastic bottle and tighten it into place.    More
(Source: Space.com - Oct 2)

NEW-GENERATION WEATHER SATELLITE NEARS NOVEMBER LAUNCH - A weather satellite expected to dramatically improve forecasting of hurricanes and other severe weather is being fueled in Titusville for an early November launch from Cape Canaveral. Meteorologists can hardly contain their excitement about the spacecraft known as GOES-R, scheduled to blast off Nov. 4 on a powerful version of United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket. “It’s a big deal. It’s a big upgrade from what we’ve had in the past,” said Fred Johnson, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service in Melbourne. “This should save lives and property.”   More
(Source: Florida Today - Sep 30)

THE UN PLANS TO LAUNCH ITS FIRST SPACE MISSION FIVE YEARS FROM NOW - The United Nations will launch its first-ever space mission aboard Sierra Nevada Corporation’s Dream Chaser spaceplane in 2021. The news was announced yesterday at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. The goal of the mission is to give developing nations that don’t have their own space programs the chance to fly payloads in microgravity. The United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) is accepting proposals "on anything from developing materials that resist corrosion in space to studying climate change and food security," Motherboard reports.    More
(Source: The Verge - Sep 29)

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