SPACEX’S EXPLOSION REVERBERATES ACROSS SPACE, SATELLITE AND TELECOM INDUSTRIES - The explosion of a SpaceX rocket last Thursday will have an impact across the space industry, far beyond the losses on the launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Fla. An Israeli satellite operator’s deal to sell itself to a Chinese company is imperiled. Planned launches of communications satellites that support international mobile phone service and digital television are delayed and put in doubt. NASA’s cargo deliveries to the International Space Station will probably be disrupted. All of them are customers of the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, whose rocket exploded in Florida. The private space launch company, led by the entrepreneur Elon Musk, has a generally solid safety record.   More
(Source: New York Times - Sep 6)

ISRO PLANS TO LAUNCH FIRST PRIVATELY BUILT SATELLITE BY MARCH - India’s space agency, Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), plans to launch a navigation satellite that it would build jointly with a private firm, by March next year, beginning a process to outsource satellite manufacturing and free its resources to focus on research and deep space missions. Isro has received over 40 responses to a tender floated to invite private firms to jointly build a satellite and eventually transfer satellite-making technology for local and global needs. The space agency plans to hand-hold vendors to jointly build, test and certify two navigation satellites that it would launch to join the fleet of seven Navic satellites already in space.   More
(Source: Business Standard - Sep 5)

RADAR BEAMS FROM S. JERSEY HELP FIND SPACE JUNK BEFORE A COLLISION - Nearly 500 miles in the sky above northern Siberia, two satellites collided with violent force Feb. 10, 2009, shattering into at least 2,000 fragments that continue to orbit Earth. And those are just the ones we know about. Scientists estimate there are hundreds of thousands of undetected objects in space resulting from collisions such as that one, and from the deterioration of old rocket boosters, dead satellites, and other stray hardware. That is the reason behind a squat, white structure that opened this year near Route 38 in Moorestown, at the South Jersey campus of Lockheed Martin Corp.   More
(Source: Philly.com - Sep 5)

CHINESE OFFICIALS SILENT AFTER LONG MARCH ROCKET FAILURE - A U.S. Air Force spokesperson said Friday that the military has not detected any objects deployed in orbit by a Chinese Long March rocket launch Wednesday, but China’s official media outlets still have not acknowledged the apparent failure. The Long March 4C rocket, standing 15 stories tall, was carrying the Gaofen 10 Earth imaging payload. The booster took off some time around 1855 GMT (2:55 p.m. EDT) Wednesday from the Taiyuan launch base in the Shanxi province of northern China.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 4)

CONTROVERSIAL TECHNOLOGY TO BE LAUNCHED - Physicists around the world have long denounced the idea as ‘impossible,’ but one firm has now revealed its plans to send the first reactionless space drive into orbit. Cannae Inc. claims it has demonstrated prototypes of a system that does not require on-board propellant to generate thrust, and according to the firm, this will be used to launch a demo cubesat into low-Earth orbit in an upcoming mission. It’s been argued that this concept violates the laws of thermodynamics, and if such demonstrations prove to be successful, it could have major implications for our current understanding of physics.    More
(Source: Daily Mail - Sep 4)

COMMUNICATION SATELLITE LOST IN SPACEX ROCKET EXPLOSION WAS CO-LEASED BY FACEBOOK - A satellite co-leased by Facebook and intended to bring internet access to parts of sub-Saharan Africa, was destroyed on a launchpad in Florida today (Sept. 1), when the rocket meant to carry it to space exploded. The explosion occurred at approximately 9:07 a.m. EDT (1307 GMT) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The AMOS-6 communications satellite was scheduled to launch on Saturday (Sept. 3), and was already secured atop a Falcon 9 rocket, built by Elon Musk's private spaceflight company SpaceX. The rocket exploded during a routine prelaunch static-fire test, in which the first stage of the rocket is ignited but does not leave the launchpad, according to a statement from SpaceX.    More
(Source: Space.com - Sep 2)

ASTRONAUTS CONCLUDE SECOND SPACEWALK OF EXPEDITION 48 - Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams and Flight Engineer Kate Rubins concluded their spacewalk at 2:41 p.m. EDT. During the six-hour, 48-minute spacewalk, the two NASA astronauts successfully retracted a thermal radiator, installed two enhanced high definition cameras on the station’s truss and tightened bolts on a joint that enables one of the station’s solar arrays to rotate.   More
(Source: NASA - Sep 2)

SPACEX ROCKET AND ISRAELI SATELLITE DESTROYED IN LAUNCH PAD EXPLOSION - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded in the final minutes of a simulated countdown at Cape Canaveral on Thursday, destroying the booster and an Israeli communications satellite valued at nearly $200 million. The mishap on Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad Thursday will raise questions about the reliability of the Falcon 9 booster, which is slated to haul up cargo to the International Space Station, launch dozens of commercial satellites, and eventually send astronauts into orbit. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) launcher exploded at 9:07 a.m. EDT (1307 GMT), a few minutes before a planned ignition of the rocket’s nine Merlin main engines for a brief “static fire” test designed to wring out problems with the launch pad and the vehicle.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 1)

EUROPEAN SATELLITE HIT BY SPACE PARTICLE - European Space Agency (ESA) engineers reported today (Aug. 31) that a solar panel on the Copernicus Sentinel-1A satellite was hit by a millimeter-size particle in orbit on Aug. 23. The strike produced a sudden small power reduction and slight changes in the orientation and the orbit of the satellite. "Following a preliminary investigation, the operations team at ESA's control center in Darmstadt, Germany suspected a possible impact by space debris or micrometeoroid on the solar wing," according to an ESA statement.   More
(Source: Space.com - Sep 1)

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