UMASS-LOWELL STUDENTS TO DESIGN SATELLITE FOR NASA - A team of students from the University of Massachusetts-Lowell has been awarded $200,000 by federal aviation officials to design and build a satellite. The miniature satellite named "SPACE HAUC" for the school's River Hawk mascot will be launched into orbit in two years, with the intention of it circling the earth for a year, capturing and transmitting data. "SPACE HAUC will give me and my fellow students valuable hands-on experience in astronautical engineering research and development," mechanical engineering student and project's program manager Dat Le said in a statement. More (Source: MassLive.com - Aug 13)
SPACEX TO LAUNCH SATELLITE, LAND ROCKET EARLY SUNDAY: WATCH IT LIVE - SpaceX will attempt another rocket landing during the launch of a commercial communications satellite early Sunday morning (Aug. 14), and you can watch all the dramatic action live. SpaceX's two-stage Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to launch the JCSAT-16 satellite at 1:26 a.m. EDT (0526 GMT) Sunday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. About 9 minutes later, the rocket's first stage will attempt a soft landing on a robotic "drone ship" in the Atlantic Ocean, a few hundred miles off the Florida coast. You can watch it all live here at Space.com, courtesy of SpaceX. More (Source: Space.com - Aug 13)
CHINESE SATELLITE WILL TEST 'SPOOKY' EINSTEIN CLAIM - Sometime this month, China is planning to launch a satellite that could be a first step towards establishing a “hack-proof” communications network. The satellite is a collaboration between the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Austrian Academy of Sciences. It will be launched from China’s Jiuquan satellite launch centre in Inner Mongolia aboard a Long March 2D rocket. It will test the quantum phenomena that govern the sub-atomic world of particles. More (Source: The Guardian - Aug 12)
CHINA SAYS NEW SATELLITE WILL HELP SAFEGUARD INTERESTS AT SEA: CHINA DAILY - A newly launched satellite will help China protect its maritime interests, the official China Daily newspaper reported on Thursday amid growing tensions over disputed territory in the South China Sea. The "Gaofen 3" satellite that was launched on Wednesday has a radar system that captures images from space with a resolution down to 1 meter (3 feet) and can operate in all weathers, the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence told the newspaper. "The satellite will play an important role in monitoring the marine environment, islands and reefs, and ships and oil rigs," the China Daily said, citing project leader Xu Fuxiang. "Satellites like the Gaofen 3 will be very useful in safeguarding the country's maritime rights and interests," he added, according to the newspaper. More (Source: Reuters - Aug 12)
CHINA LAUNCHES GAOFEN-3 HIGH-RESOLUTION RADAR IMAGING SATELLITE - A Long March 4C rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center at 6:55 p.m. Eastern time and placed the Gaofen-3 satellite into orbit. The satellite carries a synthetic aperture radar payload that can produce images with a resolution of one meter. The satellite will be used for civil applications, including environmental monitoring and disaster warning, according to state media. More (Source: SpaceNews - Aug 11)
RUSSIA COULD CUT DOWN INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION CREW - Russia’s space agency Roscosmos plans to cut down the number of cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS), Head of Piloted Space Programs and cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev said. "We have sent letters to the participants of the ISS program – we want to hear their opinion on how to cut the crew and when," Krikalev said in an interview with the Russian Izvestia newspaper. According to Krikalev, three people, which is the current crew at the Russian segment of the ISS, is too much for the equipment that is now used there. More (Source: Sputnik International - Aug 11)
SPACE STATION CARGO FLIGHTS DELAYED; SPACEWALKS ON TAP - The Japanese space agency has delayed the planned Sept 30 launch of an HTV space station cargo ship to repair a leak in the vehicle, clearing the way for Orbital ATK to slip the launch of its Cygnus supply ship from Aug. 22 to the second half of September to complete tests and analysis of its re-engined Antares rocket, officials said Wednesday. The HTV, carrying a fresh set of batteries for the International Space Station's solar arrays, was scheduled for liftoff from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center on Sept. 30. But in a short press release, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency said the flight was on hold pending repairs of a "slight leak" found during a pressure test. More (Source: CBS News - Aug 11)
WOW! NORTHERN LIGHTS GLOW IN BREATHTAKING IMAGE FROM SPACE STATION - The bright, ethereal lights of the auroras. The surface of Earth, pockmarked with impact craters. A faint glow emanating from the planet's upper atmosphere. All of these amazing sights were captured in a single nighttime photograph taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. The photo was originally taken in February 2012, and included a glimpse of the space station, but NASA's Earth Observatory recently released a cropped, labeled version of the stunning scene. More (Source: Live Science - Aug 10)
SWARM OF SATELLITES TO EXPLORE EARTH'S SHIELD FROM INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - A flotilla of 50 small satellites - known as cubesats and weighing an average of two kilos each - will be launched from the International Space Station in the European-led as QB50 mission to explore the little-understood region above Earth known as the thermosphere. The QB50 cubesats have been built by 48 universities and research institutes from 28 nations, including Canada, China, France, Italy, Korea, UK, USA and Australia (see the full list here). It is led by Belgium's Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, and includes three Australian satellites, two of them built at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. More (Source: EurekAlert - Aug 10)
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