SKYGAZERS HAVE ALREADY FOUND THE US GOVERNMENT'S NEW SPY SATELLITE - Last week, the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office launched NROL-37, carrying its latest spy satellite into geosynchronous orbit via Delta IV-Heavy rocket. But it only took amateur space enthusiasts a few days to locate the mysterious new craft in the skies near Malaysia, over the Strait of Malacca. While the contents and capabilities of the NROL-37 mission's payload are classified (the satellite is innocuously labeled US-268), its need to hitch a ride on the world's biggest rocket strongly suggests it is the seventh member of the Mentor/Orion family, an extra-large class of signals intelligence (SIGINT) satellites which help provide eavesdropping capability to US intelligence agencies.   More
(Source: Motherboard - Jun 20)

ARIANE 5 LAUNCHES ECHOSTAR 18 AND BRISAT - Ariane 5 has returned to launch action for the third time this year with the lofting of the Echostar 18 and BRISAT satellites on Saturday. BRIsat is the first satellite dedicated to serving a bank. The launch – from the European Spaceport in Kourou – was realigned to Saturday, following a scrub on Friday due to high altitude wind constraints. The launch was set to take place on June 8. However, during the preparations for the roll-out of the Ariane 5 ECA launcher, an anomaly occurred with a fluid connector between the cryogenic upper stage and the launch table.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Jun 19)

A GOOGLE SATELLITE: TWO AMONG 19 SMALL SATELLITES TO BE LAUNCHED FROM US - Two among the 19 small satellites being launched on June 22 are from United States. One of them, SkySat Gen1-1, is a small, Earth-imaging satellite weighing about 110 kg and it has been designed and built by Terra Bella, a Google firm based out of Mountain View, California, in the Unite States. The second one, the Planet Labs Dove Satellites (FLock-2P) are Earth-imaging satellites. A total of 12 Dove Satellites weighing 4.7kg each are being carried in this mission inside three QuadPack dispensers. SATHYABAMASAT, which is one among the two satellites of Indian Academic Institutes, has been developed by the Sathyabama University, Chennai.   More
(Source: Deccan Chronicle - Jun 19)

3 INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ASTRONAUTS LAND IN KAZAKHSTAN - An International Space Station crew including an American, a Briton and a Russian landed safely Saturday in the sun-drenched steppes of Kazakhstan. The Soyuz TMA-19M capsule carrying NASA's Tim Kopra, Tim Peake of the European Space Agency and the Russian agency Roscosmos' Yuri Malenchenko touched down as scheduled at 3:15 p.m. local time (0915 GMT) about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Zhezkazgan in Kazakhstan. All descent maneuvers were performed without any hitches and the crew reported feeling fine as their ship slid off the orbit and headed down to Earth. Helicopters carrying recovery teams were circling the area as the capsule was descending slowly under a massive orange-and-white parachute.   More
(Source: ABC News - Jun 19)

OIL INDUSTRY SATELLITE FOR MEASURING CLIMATE POLLUTION SET TO LAUNCH - A $10 million dollar satellite will be launched next week to attempt to do something that has proved so elusive from the ground: comprehensively measuring the carbon dioxide and methane emissions billowing from Alberta's sprawling tar sands operations, and eventually fossil fuel operations anywhere. The satellite, built by the Montreal-based GHGSat, is funded by a group including major oil sands producers and the Canadian government and will blast off into space from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in India on June 21. The hope is that, once in place 318 miles above Earth, the satellite will produce measurements with a resolution 400 times finer than current satellites produce.   More
(Source: InsideClimate News - Jun 18)

WATCH NASA LIGHT THE 'LARGEST EVER FIRE IN SPACE' - NASA have released two videos of a large fire that was lit inside an unmanned cargo ship in space in a daring experiment. The experiment, the first of three planned Nasa experiments on how big fires grow in space, was an important test for astronaut safety. The space agency confirmed the fire had been lit on June 15th at 4:55pm ET. The first of the two videos, which were posted on Nasa Glenn Research's Twitter page, shows a test performed before the fire was lit, sending tendrils of smoke across the box to make sure that air was flowing through smoothly.    More
(Source: Daily Mail - Jun 18)

WATCH THREE ASTRONAUTS LEAVE THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION TONIGHT - Tonight, three astronauts onboard the International Space Station will load into a Russian Soyuz capsule, beginning their nearly seven-hour journey back home to Earth. The returning crew is an international bunch, including NASA astronaut Tim Kopra, British astronaut Tim Peake of the European Space Agency, and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko. The trio will board the Soyuz after 10:15PM ET and then undock from the ISS around 1:52AM ET. "The astronauts are finishing up a 186-day stay in space" After that, the Soyuz will remain in orbit until about 4:21AM ET. That’s when the vehicle ignites its engines, taking the Soyuz out of Earth’s orbit. This "deorbit burn" initiates the spacecraft’s descent through the atmosphere, eventually reaching a speed of 755 feet per second.    More
(Source: The Verge - Jun 18)

WHAT KILLED JAPAN'S HITOMI X-RAY SATELLITE? - On February 17th, a new X-ray satellite observatory launched from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Centre. Named "Hitomi" meaning "Eye pupil" in Japanese, the observatory was set to explore the nature of super-massive black holes and even the origin of the mysterious dark matter. Five weeks after launch everything was going smoothly. Hitomi was making trial observations and transitioning from the highly supervised commissioning mode to regular operation. Just after 3:00 AM JST on Saturday March 26th, Hitomi performed its first maneuver without continual monitoring from Earth. Instead, scientists at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) waited for Hitomi to re-establish radio contact as its orbit swept over Japan’s ground stations in Spain and Australia.    More
(Source: Scientific American - Jun 17)

PUB CREATES MASSIVE ROAST DINNER PORTRAIT OF TIM PEAKE TO WELCOME HIM HOME TO EARTH - Tim Peake isn't just an astronaut - he's now a Gastronaut thanks to a Norwich pub. The Fieldfare pub created a massive roast dinner portrait of the astronaut, who is currently aboard the International Space Station. It was designed by renowned food artist, Prudence Staite, and took 20 hours to build. The creation contains 2.5 kg of roast potatoes, 500g carrots, 400g garden peas, 3kg cauliflower, 46 Yorkshire puddings, 2.5kg of meat and 1 litre of gravy. It weighs 12kg and features a message for Tim Peake - it says "Welcome home Tim!".   More
(Source: Telegraph.co.uk - Jun 17)

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