CHINA ROCKET LAUNCH BRINGS SPACE STATION PLANS CLOSER - China's biggest rocket has blasted off from the southern coast, helping to advance its own plans for a space station. The Long March 5 is estimated to be three times as powerful as previous Chinese technology. The ML5, which is larger than previous versions of the Long March carrier rockets, was launched from a pad in the southern province of Hainan on Thursday evening, the state news agency Xinhua said. "Its successful launch has propelled China to the forefront of the world in terms of rocket carrying capacity, and marks a milestone in China's transition from a major player in space to a major power in space," Xinhua cited the ruling Communist Party's Central Committee and powerful Central Military Commission as saying in a letter. More (Source: Deutsche Welle - Nov 5)
AN ABANDONED 1960'S U.S. SATELLITE RECENTLY STARTED TRANSMITTING A 'GHOSTLY' SIGNAL - It might sound like the start of a low-budget sci-fi horror flick, but this is for real. A satellite that was abandoned back in 1967 and left for dead has come back to life, and is now sending back what radio astronomers describe as a “ghostly” signal. But it’s not quite as supernatural as it sounds. According to The Vintage News, the satellite was put together by MIT to test satellite communication techniques and launched in 1965, but it never actually made it into the correct orbit. It was still usable for two years, but was eventually written off as just another piece of space junk by 1967. More (Source: Blastr - Nov 4)
LONG MARCH 5 LAUNCH BLASTS CHINA INTO AGE OF SPACE STATION AND DEEP SPACE EXPLORATION - Today, China launched its largest rocket yet, the Long March 5, from the new coastal launch center on Hainan Island. The launch is a major step forward on the country's path to deep space. Liftoff took place after sunset at Wenchang at 20:43 local time (12:43 UTC), stunning thousands of spectators, carrying the Shijian-17 ion propulsion technology experiment satellite towards geosynchronous orbit. The Long March 5 is capable of launching payloads up to 14 tons to geosynchronous orbits. More (Source: The Planetary Society - Nov 4)
A TERRIFYING ALIEN COMES TO 'LIFE' ON THE SPACE STATION...WATCH THE TRAILER! - In the upcoming science-fiction thriller "Life," one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time turns into a catastrophic nightmare that leaves astronauts in the International Space Station fighting for their lives. In the film, six astronauts aboard the space station study a sample collected from Mars that could provide evidence for extraterrestrial life on the Red Planet. The crew determines that the sample contains a large, single-celled organism — the first example of life beyond Earth. More (Source: Space.com - Nov 4)
SSL DELIVERS SKY PERFECT JSAT SATELLITE TO KOUROU - Space Systems Loral (SSL), a leading provider of innovative satellites and spacecraft systems, has announced that the JCSAT-15 satellite, which it designed and built for SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation (SKY Perfect JSAT), has arrived at the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, where it will be launched aboard an Ariane 5 launch vehicle by Arianespace. The satellite, which is currently being prepared for launch, will be used to provide broadcasting and communications services in Japan, Oceania, and the Indian Ocean Region. More (Source: Space Daily - Nov 3)
CHINA TO DEBUT POWERFUL NEXT-GENERATION LONG MARCH 5 LAUNCHER THURSDAY - China plans to introduce its new next-generation heavy-lift Long March 5 booster on Thursday, Nov. 3. It is expected to be a workhorse for the country’s space program. The launcher’s maiden flight will be carried out from Launch Complex 1 (LC-1) at the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island. Long March 5 is China’s most powerful launch vehicle with comparable capabilities to Arianespace’s Ariane 5 and United Launch Alliance’s (ULA) Delta IV Heavy boosters. The rocket will be used for a wide spectrum of space missions, including launching commercial satellites, space station modules, as well as deep space probes. More (Source: SpaceFlight Insider - Nov 3)
JAPANESE WEATHER OBSERVATORY SUCCESSFULLY BOOSTED INTO ORBIT - A nearly four-ton satellite fitted with a modernized camera to collect more timely images of typhoons and severe weather bolted away from a seaside launch pad in southern Japan on Wednesday, riding an H-2A rocket on the way to an orbital perch more than 22,000 miles above Earth. The Himawari 9 satellite, built by Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and owned by the Japan Meteorological Agency, will cover the Japanese islands and a swath of the Asia-Pacific stretching from India in the west, to Australia in the south, and to Hawaii in the east. Meteorologists in Japan, Australia and other nations across the region will rely on Himawari 9 and the sister satellite Himawari 8 launched two years ago for weather imagery through at least the late 2020s. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Nov 3)
H-2A ROCKET ROLLS TO LAUNCH PAD WITH JAPANESE WEATHER SATELLITE - A sophisticated new Japanese weather satellite will ride an H-2A rocket into orbit Wednesday to start a 15-year mission tracking cyclones and helping meteorologists predict storm movements across the Asia-Pacific and Australia. The Himawari 9 weather observatory is set to begin its trek to geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) above Earth on Wednesday from the Tanegashima Space Center, a spaceport nestled on the southern flank of Tanegashima Island in southern Japan. Himawari 9 is the second of two identical weather satellites owned by the Japan Meteorological Agency to offer more detailed and more timely imagery of storms, clouds and other weather systems to forecasters in Japan and across the Western Pacific. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Nov 2)
HAMS IN SPACE PART 2: THE MANNED SPACEFLIGHTS - Whether it’s trying to make contacts across the planet with a transmitter that would have a hard time lighting an LED, or blasting signals into space and bouncing them off the moon, amateur radio operators have always been on the forefront of communications technology. As mankind took to space in the 1950s and 1960s, hams went along for the ride with the first private satellites. But as successful as the OSCAR satellites were, they were still at best only beacons or repeaters in space. More (Source: Hackaday - Nov 2)
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