SPACE WEATHER SATELLITE ICON ON COURSE FOR SUMMER 2017 LAUNCH - NASA’s newest space weather research satellite, the Ionospheric Connection Explorer, is on course for a summer 2017 launch after UC Berkeley scientists and their colleagues shipped its four instruments to Utah for testing, prior to being packed into the final satellite. The ICON mission, led by UC Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory with the help of scientists and engineers from around the world, will add one more satellite to NASA’s fleet of 26 heliophysics satellites. Its mission: to understand the tug-of-war between Earth’s atmosphere and the space environment.   More
(Source: UC Berkeley - Apr 8)

SPACEX'S FALCON 9 ROCKET IS ALMOST READY FOR LAUNCH TO THE SPACE STATION - What are you doing this Friday, April 8, at 4:43 p.m. Eastern? If you're a nerd like us, you'll be watching Cape Canaveral, Florida, where SpaceX will attempt to launch its Falcon 9 rocket and deploy its uncrewed Dragon capsule to the International Space Station. In fact, Popular Science assistant editor Sarah Fecht will be there reporting live from the launch. Now, SpaceX has done this route before a number of times successfully, but the last time it tried in the summer of 2015, the rocket exploded, destroying all cargo aboard. So we're hoping for better outcome this time. Especially since SpaceX's Dragon will be carrying the first human-rated inflatable space habitat — a balloon-like room that astronauts will enter called the BEAM, made by hotel magnate Robert Bigelow's spacefaring company Bigelow Aerospace. The last public word from SpaceX was that a static test fire went well, so things are looking pretty good so far.   More
(Source: Popular Science - Apr 8)

CHINESE RESEARCH CRAFT LAUNCHED ON TWO-WEEK MISSION - The unpiloted Shijian 10 spacecraft launched from a spaceport in northwestern China on Tuesday with a suite of microgravity research experiments developed by Chinese and European scientists. The bullet-shaped space capsule soared into orbit aboard a Long March 2D rocket at 1738 GMT (1:38 p.m. EDT) Tuesday from the Jiuquan satellite launch center, a military-owned facility in the remote frontier of northwestern China. The mission, also called SJ-10, carries 19 experiments investigating fluid physics, combustion in space, materials science, biotechnology, and the effects of microgravity and radiation on plants and animals, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which manages the program.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Apr 7)

D-STAR SATELLITE TO LAUNCH FROM KOUROU - The ESA Education Office Fly Your Satellite! (FYS) programme is designed to train the next generation of aerospace professionals. Three chosen student teams have each developed 1U CubeSats carrying amateur radio payloads which are expected to launch on April 22, 2016 into a 453 by 644 km 98.2 degree inclination orbit. The satellites designed and built by the student teams, arrived in South America on Friday, March 25. Upon arrival, they were given a security escort from the airport to the Guiana Space Centre, near Kourou. The student teams arrived on March 28.   More
(Source: AMSAT-UK - Apr 7)

INFLATABLE SPACE HOTEL TO BE TESTED BY SPACE STATION CREW - The International Space Station is about to get a new room – but first the crew will have to blow it up. Later this week, the ISS will take delivery of its first additional module since 2011. But unlike the rest of the station, which is built from hulking great aluminium cans, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) will be carried to orbit folded neatly inside a SpaceX cargo capsule. BEAM was developed by Bigelow Aerospace in Las Vegas, Nevada. The module is made from soft, foldable fabric that nonetheless holds up to the harshness of space – the exact material is a commercial secret.   More
(Source: New Scientist - Apr 6)

JAPAN’S X-RAY SATELLITE SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL, SOME FRAGMENTS HEADED FOR RE-ENTRY - Last week, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) announced that it had briefly picked up radio signals from its damaged X-ray observatory, Hitomi. Those contacts sparked hope that something might be salvaged from the satellite and its mission. As we previously detailed, Hitomi’s X-ray telescope and mission were a rare chance to study the universe in a way we can’t duplicate on Earth. Unfortunately, additional information now suggests that the probe has gone dark for good. According to Dutch astronomer Marco Langbroek, there’s now evidence the probe didn’t just shed debris, it underwent an actual breakup.    More
(Source: ExtremeTech - Apr 5)

A NEW CREW OF MOUSETRONAUTS IS HEADED TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - On April 8, SpaceX is set to resume resupply flights to the International Space Station, carrying with it some special crew members. Tucked inside the Dragon cargo ship is a crew of 20 mousetronauts that will help scientists better understand how muscles deteriorate during spaceflight. Rodents, in particular mice and rats, have a long history in spaceflight dating back to the 1950s. At least 27 shuttle missions carried rodent passengers into orbit. Each of those missions was short-term, lasting no longer than two weeks. On board the ISS, scientists are able to house mice for periods of 30 to 90 days, which will substantially increase our knowledge of the effects of microgravity on different organ systems. So why mice? Mice are just one type of “model” organism, meaning a widely-studied organism used to help understand biological processe   More
(Source: Motherboard - Apr 5)

NASA, JAPAN MAKE 2.95 MILLION SATELLITE EARTH IMAGES FREE - All Earth imagery – consisting of more than 2.95 million individual scenes — from a prolific Japanese remote sensing instrument operating aboard NASA’s Terra spacecraft since late 1999 has now been made available to users everywhere at no cost , NASA announced on Friday. “The public will have unlimited access to the complete 16-plus-year database for Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) instrument, which images Earth to map and monitor the changing surface of our planet,” the US space agency said in a statement.   More
(Source: The Siasat Daily - Apr 4)

NILE RIVER RUNS BLOOD RED IN SPECTACULAR SATELLITE IMAGES - The Nile River runs blood red in images captured by the European Space Agency’s new Sentinel-3A satellite. While the stunning images of the storied Nile River come from sophisticated scientific instrumentation, they have many observers recalling ancient legends of biblical times. Sentinel-3A was launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) on February 16, 2016. The Sentinel-3A satellite just recently began to transmit data back to earth, including the stunning image that includes the Nile River. The image just released by the ESA was recorded on March 3, 2016, and includes the Sahara and other desert areas of northeast Africa and the Middle East, featuring the delta area along with the Nile River itself.    More
(Source: The Inquisitr - Apr 4)

Previous Next