ANIMAL MIGRATIONS WILL SOON BE TRACKED FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - To track the migration patterns of tagged birds, sea turtles and other animals around the world, scientists must rely on radio receivers that don’t provide a lot of critical information. The animals “leave in one place and we don’t know what happens to them until they show up in another place,” Meg Crofoot, from the University of California, Davis, told The Atlantic. The lack of this information hinders efforts to save threatened species, and can leave people vulnerable to diseases like avian flu and Ebola that are carried by migratory birds and bats.    More
(Source: Care2.com - Jul 16)

CHINA PLANS TO BUILD OWN SPACE STATION SIMILAR TO ISS - China is developing its own space station and is building a new site which will be used to launch space stations and space technology. The trial run for the new rocket was a success so the construction of the station will begin in 2018. It is likely that China will play a leading role in this sphere and might replace the ISS program, in which Japan also participates.   More
(Source: Sputnik International - Jul 16)

SPACEX TO LAUNCH NINTH SPACE STATION RESUPPLY MISSION - Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of Hawthorne is scheduled to launch one of its rockets on a resupply mission from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida to the International Space Station on Monday, July 18. The Drago cargo spacecraft will carry scientific experiments, crew supplies, and hardware. This is the company’s ninth commercial resupply services mission and seventh rocket launch this year. The Dragon will reach its preliminary orbit about 10 minutes after launch, deploy its solar arrays, and begin a two-day voyage to reach the space station.   More
(Source: Los Angeles Business Journal - Jul 16)

PHOTOS FROM NASA THAT WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT THE PLANET - The City of Light never looked brighter than in this extraordinary image, captured from NASA’s Earth Observatory at the International Space Station. We have clear view of Paris’s trademark Haussmanian avenues and boulevards and the neat loop created by the famous Périphérique ring road that encircles the city. The Avenue des Champs-Élysées seems to sparkle as it stretches up to the famous Etoile (‘star’) junction, where the latter’s 12 radiating avenues also appear to shine.    More
(Source: Telegraph.co.uk - Jul 15)

U-F-NO! NASA SHOOTS DOWN SPECULATION OVER SPACE STATION VIDEO - There's a rumor swirling around the internet that NASA intentionally turned off a live camera on the International Space Station (ISS) after the feed showed a small object just above Earth. The suggestion (or outright accusation, by some) is that NASA is trying to cover something up — that the bright light was an alien UFO or a large piece of space debris that the agency doesn't want people to know about. Is there any truth to the rumors? Here's what we know: A bright object was visible in the video feed coming from the live camera on the ISS, and the camera cut out shortly after the object appeared (the camera came back on shortly after, and is now running as usual).    More
(Source: Space.com - Jul 15)

NEXT SPACEX LAUNCH WILL BRING CRITICAL DOCKING ADAPTER TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - The International Space Station is getting an important piece of cargo next week: a new International Docking Adapter, or IDA, that will allow future crewed spacecraft to automatically dock with the station. The large metallic ring, which measures 63 inches in diameter, will eventually be installed on the Harmony module. This is the second IDA to be sent to space, though the first one never actually made it to orbit; it was destroyed when the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying it to the ISS disintegrated during launch in June 2015. "This is the second IDA to be sent to space, though the first one never actually made it" This new IDA is slated to launch early Monday morning from Cape Canaveral, Florida on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The vehicle will carry around 3,800 pounds of fresh cargo and science experiments, including a space-based DNA sequencer called minION that will be used by NASA astronaut Kate Rubins to sequence DNA in space for the first time. But the IDA is perhaps the key item onboard.   More
(Source: The Verge - Jul 14)

CLUSTERS OF SMALL SATELLITES COULD HELP ESTIMATE EARTH'S REFLECTED ENERGY - A team of small, shoebox-sized satellites, flying in formation around the Earth, could estimate the planet's reflected energy with twice the accuracy of traditional monolith satellites, according to an MIT-led study published online in Acta Astronautica. If done right, such satellite swarms could also be cheaper to build, launch, and maintain. The researchers, led by Sreeja Nag, a former graduate student in MIT's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro), simulated the performance of a single large, orbiting satellite with nine sensors, compared with a cluster of three to eight small, single-sensor satellites flying together around the Earth. In particular, the team looked at how each satellite formation measures albedo...   More
(Source: EurekAlert - Jul 14)

CHINA’S FIRST SPACE STATION COULD BE IN FREEFALL AND HURTLING BACK TOWARDS EARTH - CHINA’S first space station could be in freefall and about to come crashing back down to Earth, it has been warned. The Tiangong-1 satellite has been orbited Earth since 2011, used in docking exercises and is still used in investigative and scientific work, but concerns have been raised that China has lost control of the station, which means it could come crashing back through Earth’s atmosphere. But amateur astronomers have been watching the satellite with concerns the space station has gone into freefall.   More
(Source: The Sun - Jul 14)

DIGITALGLOBE UNVEILS NEXT-GENERATION IMAGING SATELLITE - It’s really frustrating when that super-fly Snapchat you took at 55 mph of the unreleased Tesla Model 3 you caught in the wild turns out blurry. DigitalGlobe will be able to snap that picture from 400 miles away, at 17,000 mph, with its new satellite. TechCrunch got a sneak preview of DigitalGlobe‘s, nearly billion dollar, satellite that will be able to send hella dope grams, #NoFilter, back to earth within minutes. Dr.Walter Scott, founder and CTO of DigitalGlobe, spent nearly four years designing and building WorldView 4. All the components are powered by solar panels on the base-unit. WorldView uses a standard base-unit from Lockheed Martin to cut down on costs and uses a custom adapter to connect the optics.   More
(Source: TechCrunch - Jul 14)

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