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)

LEADING ASTRONOMER URGES EUROPE TO END HUMAN SPACE MISSIONS - Britain's leading astronomer has called on Europe to end human spaceflights because he says they are no longer cost effective or a benefit to science. Astronomer Martin Rees told CNN that the European Space Agency (ESA) should focus on robotic exploration instead. "The practical case for sending people into space is getting weaker as robots are getting better," Rees said. "Spaceflights have become an adventure sport," he explained. "The space station only makes the news when something goes wrong or when Chris Hadfield plays the guitar."   More
(Source: CNN - Jun 17)

FIRST 3D TOOLS PRINTED ABOARD SPACE STATION - Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have manufactured their first tool using the 3D printer on board the station. This is another step in the ongoing process of testing and using additive manufacturing in space. The ability to build tools and replacement parts at the station is something NASA has been pursuing keenly. The first tool printed was a simple wrench. This may not sound like ground-breaking stuff, unless you’ve ever been in the middle of a project only to find you’re missing a simple tool. A missing tool can stop any project in its tracks, and change everybody’s plans. The benefits of manufacturing needed items in space are obvious.   More
(Source: Universe Today - Jun 17)

NOAA, NASA PLANNING FALL LAUNCH OF NEW WEATHER SATELLITE - ASA are set to launch the first in a new generation of weather satellites this fall. The GOES-R series, short for Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite – R Series, are scheduled to launch between 2016 and 2025. The first satellite, GOES-R, is scheduled to launch Nov. 4, 2016. Kathryn Miretzky of Science and Technology Corporation spoke about the satellite at the 44th Conference on Broadcast Meteorology in Austin on June 15. She said the GOES-R satellites will use an advanced baseline imager (ABI). This means the satellite will be able to give a “full disk” image of the earth every 15 minutes, and images from the continental United States every five minutes. Resolution of the images will be 0.5 to 2 kilometers each.   More
(Source: KVUE.com/ - Jun 16)

SPACEX FALCON 9 LAUNCHES FROM CAPE CANAVERAL; LANDING UNSUCCESSFUL - The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket met a violent end Wednesday morning, but not before helping a pair of communications satellites fly gracefully into orbit. The rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on time at 10:29 a.m., rumbling southeast over the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX had hoped to achieve a fourth consecutive landing of a Falcon 9 booster on a ship stationed down range, a feat that would have made such landings start to look routine. But the booster came in too fast, resulting, CEO Elon Musk said, in a “RUD”: Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly. In other words, it crashed.   More
(Source: Florida Today - Jun 16)

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