BOEING, LOCKHEED TO LAUNCH HABITATS FOR SPACE TOURISTS AND RESEARCHERS - Bigelow Aerospace’s expandable space habitat just arrived at the International Space Station, but the company is already thinking about the next steps: flying even larger inflatable habitats into space to be used for research and even space hotels. The company announced at a conference here Monday that starting in 2020 the United Launch Alliance, the joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, would deliver the habitats to space, where they would orbit the Earth more than a couple hundred miles high. The deal was heralded as a significant step toward commercializing space and creating a viable self-sustaining economy where businesses could thrive without being propped up by government.    More
(Source: Washington Post - Apr 12)

SLOVAKIA TO SEND ITS FIRST EVER SATELLITE INTO SPACE - Slovakia is gearing up to launch its first satellite to orbit with the aim of demonstrating the country’s ability to carry out scientific experiments in space. The pocket-sized one-unit CubeSat, named skCUBE, is currently slated for liftoff in June atop SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The central European state is one of the last countries on the continent to have its own satellite. Weighing about 2.2 lbs. (1 kg), skCUBE is a 4-inch (10-centimeter) cube that will carry an onboard computer, a communications system and a small camera to conduct experiments when orbiting Earth. The main goal of this project is to demonstrate that Slovakia is capable of doing highly sophisticated space research.    More
(Source: SpaceFlight Insider - Apr 12)

NASA JUST RECOVERED ITS DRIFTING KEPLER SPACECRAFT - After an inexplicable shift into Emergency Mode, NASA managed to partially recover its planet-hunting Kepler spacecraft. But we still don’t know what caused it to wig out in the first place. It’s been a tense few days for the Kepler team since a regularly scheduled interchange with the spacecraft on Thursday, April 8th revealed that it had switched over to Emergency Mode. Today, NASA announced that it has recovered the spacecraft, and that it’s on its way back to normal operations. What caused the Emergency Mode shift still isn’t known, though NASA steered blame away from the reaction wheels, whose failure a few years back left the spacecraft spinning (temporarily) out of control.   More
(Source: Gizmodo - Apr 11)

NASA REPORTS KEPLER SATELLITE ENTERS EMERGENCY MODE - A spacecraft emergency has been declared by the Kepler Mission, as mission engineers have discovered that the Kepler spacecraft is in Emergency Mode (EM). As reported by NASA, the startling find was made during a scheduled contact with the spacecraft on April 7. Emergency Mode is Kepler’s lowest operational mode and uses up large amounts of fuel. The team behind the Kepler Mission is now racing to recover from EM. Declaring a spacecraft emergency helps them to fix the problem even faster, as it grants them priority access to ground-based communications at NASA’s Deep Space Network.   More
(Source: RedOrbit - Apr 11)

SPACEX DRAGON ARRIVES AT SPACE STATION, DELIVERS INFLATABLE ROOM PROTOTYPE - SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship is captured by the International Space Station's robotic arm in this view from an exterior camera on April 10, 2016. The unmanned Dragon delivered 7,000 lbs. of supplies to the space station for NASA. Credit: NASA TV A SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station today (April 10) to deliver vital supplies, science experiments and a prototype inflatable space habitat for the orbiting outpost and its six-person crew. Launched on Friday (April 8) from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the Dragon pulled up to space station on this morning where it was captured by the orbital complex's Canadarm2 robotic arm. "It looks like we caught a Dragon," British astronaut Tim Peake of the European Space Agency radioed to Mission Control after snagging the spacecraft with the station's arm.   More
(Source: Space.com - Apr 10)

THIS TINY SATELLITE COULD BE YOUR OWN PERSONAL SPACECRAFT FROM JUST $1,000 - How much do you think a typical spacecraft costs? Millions, or even billions, of dollars? If you're talking about the kinds of vehicles in NASA's fleet, you're right, but what if you reduced the scale to, say, the dimensions of a Matchbox car? That would make things a lot more affordable, right? That's the thinking behind an ambitious new satellite concept developed by scientists at Arizona State University (ASU). Their tiny SunCube platform is what's called a femtosat – aka femtosatellite, meaning an extremely small satellite that weighs less than 100 grams in total (and that's including any mini payload or fuel).   More
(Source: ScienceAlert - Apr 10)

ISS SLOW SCAN TV APRIL 11-15 - ARISS reports that International Space Station (ISS) Slow Scan TV (SSTV) transmissions on 145.800 MHz FM may take place between April 11-15, 2016. The schedule for the ARISS commemorative event is currently: • Setup and activation on April 11 about 18:25 UT. • Paused April 12 from 12:15 until 14:15 UT to allow for a school contact with Romania. • Paused April 13 from 12:45 until 14:30 UT to allow for a school contact with Argentina. • Deactivation on April 14 at 11:35 UT. This opportunity should cover most of the world during the operational period.The image transmissions should be on 145.800 MHz and the mode is planned to be PD180.   More
(Source: AMSAT-UK - Apr 9)

WATCH SPACEX’S HISTORIC OCEAN LANDING IN CRYSTAL-CLEAR 4K - Still haven't had enough of SpaceX's rocket landing in the middle of the ocean? Well, new 4K video is here to satisfy you and then make you hungry for more. Late last night, SpaceX released high-definition footage taken from a chase plane, showing the Falcon 9's delicate descent onto the autonomous drone ship "Of Course I Still Love You."   More
(Source: The Verge - Apr 9)

SPACEX LAUNCHES FROM CAPE, LANDS FALCON 9 FIRST STAGE ON BARGE - SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket with a Dragon spacecraft on a mission to the International Space Station at 4:43 p.m. Friday. The commercial launch company then successfully landed the first stage of the rocket on an autonomous barge in the Atlantic Ocean.   More
(Source: Florida Today - Apr 8)

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