THOSE FACEBOOK LIVES FROM SPACE ARE FAKE AF - A Facebook Live video allegedly showing a live feed of the International Space Station (ISS) is going viral on social media though there are several doubts on its authenticity. The alleged live footage was posted by several media outlets and pages, including UNILAD, Viral USA and INTERESTINATE, gathering an insane amount of views and likes. The video on Viral USA's Facebook page has been going on for three hours and has got more than 2 million likes, 400k shares and 280k views. High figures were also recorded by UNILAD, which tagged the International Space Station in the caption. More (Source: Mashable - Oct 27)
PICTURE THIS: STARTUP SATELLITE FLEET WILL IMAGE PLANET DAILY - A satellite-imaging startup wants to make global change transparent, by capturing every part of the planet every day and sharing those images with the world. The company, known as Planet, is aiming to make global change visible, accessible, and actionable for everyone, Will Marshall, the startup's co-founder and CEO, said during an address to the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on Sept. 27, 2015. The company has deployed large fleets of small, inexpensive satellites designed solely to capture images of the planet. More (Source: Live Science - Oct 26)
NEW ‘SELFIE’ MICROSATELLITE CAPTURES IMAGES OF CHINESE SPACE STATION - Here’s a great new view of China’s Tiangong II space station, taken by a new ‘selfie’ satellite. The Banxing-2 satellite is about the size of a desktop printer and was released from the station on Sunday. It has been nicknamed the “Selfie Stick” by Chinese officials and is taking pictures of the station and the docked Shenzhou XI spacecraft. The Chinese astronauts who boarded the station last week aren’t just joining the selfie craze; the 25 megapixel camera with wide-angle and infrared imagers has a specific job. “The companion satellite monitors the conditions of Tiangong II and Shenzhou XI all the time, which is helpful in detecting failures,” said Chen Hongyu, chief engineer of the satellite program and a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Micro-satellite Innovation Institute. More (Source: Universe Today - Oct 26)
CHINA’S SPACE LAB LAUNCHES MICRO-SATELLITE - China’s experimental space lab Tiangong-2 orbiting the Earth with two astronauts on board has successfully launched a micro-satellite, roughly the size of a desktop printer. Weighing 47 kilogrammes, the micro satellite has a series of visible light cameras, including a 25 megapixel camera and wide-angle imagers. Its mission is to take photographs of Tiangong II and the Shenzhou 11 spacecraft, which docked with the lab on Wednesday. The Tiangong II space laboratory released its companion satellite, Banxing-2, at 7:31 am local time Sunday. The satellite, which the media has nicknamed “Selfie Stick”, also has an infrared camera that is temperature-sensitive, said Chen Hongyu, chief engineer of the satellite programme and a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Micro-satellite Innovation Institute. More (Source: The Indian Express - Oct 25)
ANOTHER U.S. AIR FORCE WEATHER SATELLITE JUST BROKE UP IN ORBIT - A third U.S. Air Force weather satellite that launched more than 20 years ago has broken up in orbit, Air Force Space Command disclosed Monday evening. Air Force officials confirmed the breakup of the long-retired Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Flight 12 satellite (DMSP F-12) after the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, detected an additional object orbiting alongside the 22-year-old satellite. DMSP F-12, which the Air Force retired from service in 2008, had the same battery assembly that was implicated in the February 2015 breakup of DMSP F-13. More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 25)
A STARTUP’S CONSTELLATION OF TINY SATELLITES IS NOW PHOTOGRAPHING A THIRD OF EARTH’S LANDMASS EVERY - Are you ready for the coming era of global transparency? After two years in operation, the satellite-imaging startup Planet tells Quartz that it is now photographing more than 50 million square kilometers of the earth every single day. That’s about a tenth of the world’s surface area, or more than a third of its 149 million square kilometers of land. Indeed, in September 2016 alone, the company says it imaged 91% of earth’s land mass. Planet’s plan is to make that imagery available to the public, with free basic access and premium accounts for higher quantity and quality data. It’s likely to impact everything from finance and farming to environmental protection and human rights. More (Source: Quartz - Oct 25)
SPACE STATION ACCEPTS 1ST VIRGINIA DELIVERY IN 2 YEARS - The International Space Station received its first shipment from Virginia in more than two years Sunday following a sensational nighttime launch observed 250 miles up and down the East Coast. Orbital ATK's cargo ship pulled up at the space station bearing 5,000 pounds of food, equipment and research. "What a beautiful vehicle," said Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi, who used the station's big robot arm to grab the vessel. The capture occurred as the spacecraft soared 250 miles above Kyrgyzstan; Onishi likened it to the last 195 meters of a marathon. Last Monday's liftoff from Wallops Island was the first by an Antares rocket since a 2014 launch explosion. More (Source: ABC News - Oct 24)
GLASGOW FIRM ALBA ORBITAL READY TO LAUNCH TINY SATELLITE INTO OUTER SPACE - A Small Scots start-up company is about to launch its own satellite into space – which is the size of a drinks can. Alba Orbital, based in Glasgow, has created the cuboid shaped satellite to be used to monitor aeroplanes. And after a year’s development, they are ready to see it launched into space on the back of a Russian rocket early next year. The satellite – which is no bigger than a can of Coke – is the smallest of its kind made in the UK, and will be deployed in a pod, before blasting out into the darkness of the solar system. More (Source: Glasgow Evening Times - Oct 23)
WHITE HOUSE ANNOUNCES SMALL SATELLITE INITIATIVE - The White House announced a new initiative Oct. 21 to promote the development of small satellites, collecting under one roof a number of efforts, some of which started months ago. The “Harnessing the Small Satellite Revolution” initiative, announced in a White House Office of Science and Technology Policy statement, highlights several ongoing efforts by NASA, the Pentagon and other federal government agencies to help develop smallsats or make use of images or other data they provide. Some elements of the initiative were announced weeks or months ago. The OSTP announcement highlighted a $20 million award the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency made to Planet, the San Francisco-based company developing a constellation of Earth imaging satellites. More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 22)
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