BOEING DELAYS FIRST CREWED CST-100 FLIGHT TO 2018 - Boeing has delayed the first crewed flight of its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle until early 2018, later than NASA’s original deadline, because of a series of technical issues and new requirements that the company argues are typical for an aerospace development program. The current development schedule, Boeing spokeswoman Rebecca Regan said May 12, calls for a pad abort test of the spacecraft’s launch abort system in October 2017. That will be followed by an uncrewed orbital test flight of the spacecraft in December 2017. A crewed flight, carrying one NASA astronaut and one Boeing test pilot to the International Space Station, is now scheduled for February 2018. More (Source: SpaceNews - May 14)
TINY DEBRIS CHIPPED A WINDOW ON THE SPACE STATION - A spacecraft orbiting the Earth gets damaged by space debris. You're probably thinking it's the plot of Gravity, and you're not wrong. It's also what happened to the International Space Station a few months ago. Don't panic, everyone's fine, and the ISS is still safe. But the 7mm-wide dent in one of the windows of the ISS's cupola is a reminder that space debris is a force to be reckoned with. Astronaut Tim Peake took the image of the damage, saying “I am often asked if the International Space Station is hit by space debris. Yes – this is the chip in one of our Cupola windows, glad it is quadruple glazed!” More (Source: Popular Science - May 13)
ELEMENTARY SCHOOL’S SSTV CUBESAT NOW SET TO DEPLOY FROM ISS ON MAY 16 - After postponements earlier this year, the STMSat-1 CubeSat constructed by pupils at St Thomas More (STM) Cathedral School in Arlington, Virginia, now is set to deploy from the International Space Station on Monday, May 16, between 1400 and 1500 UTC. The spacecraft is equipped with a slow-scan TV (SSTV) payload that will transmit on the 70 centimeter Amateur Radio band (437.800 MHz). The school won a NASA competition for the launch. The satellite is the first to be designed and built by grade schoolers, who have been supported by NASA technical advisors and local radio amateurs. More (Source: ARRL - May 13)
A SATELLITE WILL 'WEIGH' THE EARTH'S FORESTS FROM SPACE IN 2021 - Earth scientists are working on a revolutionary radar system that will be able to 'weigh' the world's forests, which they hope to launch into space in 2021. The mission, which is called BIOMASS and is being led by Shaun Quegan from the University of Sheffield, will see the radar installed on a satellite and blasted into orbit. There, it will gather the data to create a three-dimensional map of the Earth's forests. "The study will essentially weigh forests – it will tell us their weight and height, and we will be able to see how they are changing over time," said Quegan. More (Source: TechRadar - May 12)
HOW DO WOMEN HANDLE THEIR PERIODS IN SPACE? - The first woman ventured into space more than fifty years ago -- Valentina Tereshkova in 1963. Since then, nearly 60 other women have followed in her footsteps. But when they prepare for these journeys, one added challenge faces them: how should they handle their period? "When women first went into space, it wasn't known what the effects would be," says Varsha Jain, gynecologist and researcher at Kings College London, and among the authors of a recent paper on menstruation in spaceflight. It turns out that while most systems in the human body are heavily affected during spaceflight, the female menstrual cycle doesn't seem to change at all. More (Source: CNN - May 12)
CARGO-CARRYING DRAGON SPACESHIP RETURNS TO EARTH - SpaceX’s Dragon supply ship departed the International Space Station on Wednesday, fired rocket thrusters to brake out of orbit, and parachuted to a picture-perfect splashdown in the Pacific Ocean with approximately 3,461 pounds (1,570 kilograms) of experiment samples and equipment. Concluding a 31-day stay at the outpost, the 12-foot-diameter (3.7-meter) spacecraft detached from the space station’s Harmony module early Wednesday in the grasp of the research lab’s Canadian-built robotic arm, which maneuvered the capsule to a release point about 30 feet, or 10 meters, beneath the complex. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 12)
WATCH SPACEX DRAGON DEPART ISS MAY 11 - On Wednesday, May 11, 2016, the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft, carrying valuable science research, will depart from the International Space Station (ISS) and return to Earth. NASA Television will provide live coverage of Dragon’s departure beginning at 9 a.m. EDT. Watch here. The Dragon spacecraft, which arrived at the station on April 10, 2016 with almost 7,000 pounds of cargo, will be detached from the Earth-facing side of the station’s Harmony module using a robotic arm operated by ground controllers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. R More (Source: EarthSky - May 11)
STARTUP HELPS AUSSIE STUDENTS REACH THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - She hasn't even graduated from university, but Solange Cunin is already planning to send some very special cargo into space. At 23, Cunin is the cofounder of the startup Quberider, which has developed a program for high school students that aims to teach coding and data analysis through the prism of space travel. She's taken the semester off from studying aerospace engineering at the University of New South Wales to concentrate on the project as part of the Sydney accelerator program, muru-D. More (Source: Mashable - May 11)
SCHOOL SSTV CUBESAT TO DEPLOY FROM ISS - A Slow Scan TV (SSTV) CubeSat developed by students at Saint Thomas More Cathedral School (STM) in Arlington, VA, is set to be deployed from the International Space Station between 1400 and 1500 UT on May 16. For latest date/time check here. STM student using amateur radio station STM student using amateur radio station STM is thought to be the first Elementary school to build their own satellite, even Pre-Kindergarten, Kindergarten, and First Grade students were involved in the project. The satellite, a 1U CubeSat called STMSat-1, will transmit a SSTV Robot36 mode signal on 437.800 MHz. More (Source: AMSAT-UK - May 11)
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