'BEAM' ABOARD: EXPERIMENTAL INFLATABLE ROOM ATTACHED TO SPACE STATION - The International Space Station gained a brand new room on Saturday (April 16), but it will be another month before it grows large enough for the astronauts to enter. A first-of-its-type inflatable structure, the BEAM — or Bigelow Expandable Activity Module — built by Bigelow Aerospace, was attached to the rear-facing port of the space station's Tranquility node. It is the first new addition to the orbiting outpost in five years. Launched inside the unpressurized trunk of a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule on April 8, the BEAM arrived at the space station two days later. More (Source: Space.com - Apr 17)
HOW THE NAVY'S ORBITING ROBOTS WILL REFURBISH CIVILIAN SATELLITES - Geosynchronous orbits above Earth are among the most valuable real estate in the solar system. This band of space is utilized by everything from civilian communications and GPS satellites to government-operated weather and nuclear monitors to military applications like on-demand warfighter broadband. It's also a veritable minefield of broken-down, ground-up derelict satellites. As Dr. Darren S. McKnight of Integrity Applications explained during a recent presentation at the 32nd Space Symposium held in Colorado Springs, Colo., this week, every satellite collision could potentially produce hundreds to thousands of debris fragments. More (Source: Engadget - Apr 16)
A DISNEY SPACE STATION? IT NO LONGER SEEMS LIKE SUCH A GOOFY IDEA - Throughout our planet’s space-faring history, there have been two major impediments to putting a lot of private citizens into orbit. Only governments have had spacecraft, and there have been only a few government-controlled space stations to visit. But now that may finally changing in a big way. Within less than two years, both Boeing and SpaceX should complete development of private capsules that will carry people into space. Two other companies, Blue Origin and Sierra Nevada, are also developing orbital spacecraft. More (Source: Ars Technica - Apr 16)
THE ISS IS SENDING TV SIGNALS TO HAM RADIO NERDS - HAM radio enthusiasts around the world are freaking out this week because they’ve had the rare chance to receive and decode television signals from the International Space Station. The ISS is outfitted with an amateur radio that allows it to send and receive signals from Earth. Astronauts aboard the spacecraft occasionally use it to communicate with students as a whoa I’m talking to an astronaut from my classroom sort of exercise. There have even been times when bored astronauts have turned on the radio and started talking to random people around the world. But every once in a while, the ISS has an announced “event” where it broadcasts signals to amateur radio enthusiasts. More (Source: Motherboard - Apr 15)
STUNNING TWITTER IMAGE OF EARTH BY INTERNAITONAL SPACE STATION ASTRONAUT TIM PEAKE - Major Tim Peake took a photograph of Earth before sunset from the International Space Station. British astronaut is three months into his six month mission living 225 miles (410km) above the Earth. Last week he shared night time snaps of UK, France, Italy and other parts of Europe on Twitter. Astronaut managed to capture Mount Everest, saying it's 'harder to spot from space than you might think' More (Source: Daily Mail - Apr 15)
SECRETIVE ANGELS SATELLITE PART OF NEW SPACE EXPERIMENTS - The U.S. Air Force is using a little-discussed satellite that launched in 2014 as part of ongoing experiments that look at how the Defense Department and intelligence community would act during a war in space. Gen. John Hyten, the head of Air Force Space Command, said during a press briefing here that the Defense Department has used the Automated Navigation and Guidance Experiment for Local Space, or ANGELS, satellite during recent space experiments. The satellite launched to geosynchronous orbit in July 2014 as part of the Air Force Space Command-4 mission, but Air Force leaders have rarely, if ever, discussed the satellite in public since then. Hyten said during a press briefing here at the Space Symposium that the Air Force has “done a bunch of interesting things with the ANGELS experiment.” More (Source: SpaceNews - Apr 15)
WATCH NASA ATTACH AN INFLATABLE SPACE HABITAT TO THE SPACE STATION - The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) hitched a ride to the space station on Friday's SpaceX launch. The module rode folded up in the trunk of the Dragon capsule, but after it gets attached to the space station, air from the ISS will expand the flexible structure into a room that's large enough for a person to stand up in--roughly 10 feet in diameter by 13 feet long. Beginning on Saturday at 5:30 am Eastern, the station's robotic arm will pull BEAM out of the Dragon's rear end, then slowly attach it to a station port. More (Source: Popular Science - Apr 14)
FIRST-EVER D-STAR SATELLITE TO LAUNCH IN APRIL - The first-ever satellite to carry a D-STAR (Digital Smart Technologies for Amateur Radio) Amateur Radio payload into space is expected to launch on April 22 from Guiana. The OUFTI-1 (Orbital Utility For Telecommunication Innovations) CubeSat is one of three CubeSats developed by student teams under the European Space Agency (ESA) Education Office “Fly Your Satellite!” program, which is aimed at training the next generation of aerospace professionals. The satellites arrived in South America on March 25, followed by the student teams a few days later. More (Source: ARRL - Apr 13)
THIS IS WHAT A SPACE LAUNCH LOOKS LIKE FROM SPACE - No, this isn't photographic proof of angels. It's actually something even cooler: an Atlas V rocket carrying an uncrewed Cygnus capsule, blasting off into space on December 6, 2015, as seen from the view of an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. The rocket is the tiny point at the top of the image, and the white tendrils trailing from it are exhaust plumes from its engine. About two-and-half days after this photo was taken, the Cygnus docked with the station and dropped off 7,745 pounds of cargo. More (Source: Popular Science - Apr 13)
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