WATCH: WINTER STORM JONAS FORMS IN NASA VIDEO OF SATELLITE IMAGES - We've been hearing a lot this week about Winter Storm Jonas and the ... dusting of snow it might bring to Western Massachusetts. But winter storms, even those named after the Jonas Brothers (wait ... did you say this storm was NOT named after the Jonas Brothers? It's from Ionas, the Latin spelling of the name Jonah? It's one of 26 potential named winter storms for 2015-16 - provided by the Bozeman, Montana, High School Latin class - that the Weather Channel is using? Ah, got it) can be very dangerous, and this one certainly will have an effect on Massachusetts.   More
(Source: Mass Live - Jan 22)

EUROPE'S SATELLITE LASER COMMS SYSTEM SET TO SHINE - The European Space Agency (ESA) and Airbus Defence and Space are poised to launch the first orbiting component of the European Data Relay System (EDRS), aka the "SpaceDataHighway", described as "the most sophisticated laser communication network ever designed". On 27 January, the EDRS-A node will lift off from Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Russian Proton rocket. In 2017, it'll be followed by the EDRS-C satellite, which will be carried aloft by a Ariane 5 from Kourou, French Guiana. Once up and running, the two geostationary (GEO) nodes over Europe will receive data from other Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites via laser links and beam it earthwards to ground stations at rates up to 1,800 Mbit/s.   More
(Source: The Register - Jan 21)

NAVIGATION SATELLITE PSLV-C31 LAUNCHED, SUCCESSFULLY ENTERS ORBIT - An Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket blasted off successfully with the country's fifth navigation satellite IRNSS-1E from the rocket port here on Wednesday. The satellite entered its orbit in 19 minutes after the launch. It is the fifth regional navigation satellite. The 320-tonne 44-metre rocket (PSLV-C31) was launched from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan space centre here at 9.31am and deploy the 1,425 kg fifth navigation satellite into as sub-geosynchronous orbit 19 minutes and 20 seconds later at an altitude of 503 km from above the earth.   More
(Source: Sakshi Post - Jan 20)

FLOWER BLOOMS ON INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION FOR FIRST TIME - NASA astronaut Scott Kelly is proving quite the gardener in space. Over the weekend, he tweeted out an image of what he described as the first flower grown in space. It may not match the exploits of astronaut Mark Watney, the Matt Damon character in the movie “The Martian” who survives on Mars in part by growing potatoes. But nonetheless, it is a small step towards NASA's goal of one day developing bioregenerative food production systems for the space station and long-duration exploration missions.   More
(Source: Fox News - Jan 19)

SATELLITE LAUNCHED TO MEASURE MOTIONS OF THE OCEANS - A new satellite built to extend a 24-year series of joint U.S.-European ocean observatories climbed away from a foggy California launch pad and sailed into orbit more than 800 miles above Earth on Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The Jason 3 satellite is kicking off a five-year mission to precisely measure ocean waves, maritime winds, ocean currents and sea level rise for a consortium of scientific institutions in the United States and Europe. The spacecraft lifted off at 10:42:18 a.m. PST (1:42:18 p.m. EST; 1842:18 GMT) from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, the primary U.S. launch site for polar orbiting satellites.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 18)

STAGE SET FOR LAUNCH OF IRNSS-1E SATELLITE ON JANUARY 20 - IRNSS-1E, the fifth satellite of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System 'IRNSS-1E', will be launched on board the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C31 from the spaceport of Sriharikota on January 20. IRNSS-1E is scheduled for launch at 9.31am from the second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota, about 100 km from Chennai, city-headquartered Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) said on Sunday.    More
(Source: Times of India - Jan 18)

SPACEX FAILS A THIRD TIME TO LAND ITS FALCON 9 ON A DRONE SHIP IN THE SEA - SpaceX has failed to land its Falcon 9 rocket on an autonomous drone ship in the Pacific Ocean after launching the vehicle into space. The company originally said that the rocket came in too hard, but after further review of the data, SpaceX concluded that one of the rocket's legs failed to lock, causing the whole thing to tip over. Waves at the landing site today were 12 to 15 feet high, which may have contributed to difficulties in landing. But when asked if the same scenario would have happened on land, Musk answered, "Probably."   More
(Source: The Verge - Jan 17)

SPACEX FALCON 9 DEPLOYS JASON-3 SATELLITE INTO ORBIT - Breaking through a dense fog a SpaceX rocket carried the Jason-3 satellite into low-Earth orbit on Sunday, but the Falcon 9's first-stage is not upright on the ocean barge after a return landing attempt. Lifting off with 1.3 million pounds of thrust, the Falcon 9 launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 10:42 a.m. PST/1:42 p.m. EST. The first and second stage of the rocket separated over Africa, sending the second stage powered by a Merlin vacuum engine to deliver the Jason-3 into orbit.    More
(Source: Orlando Sentinel - Jan 17)

JASON-3 SATELLITE TO TRACK RISING SEA LEVELS, GLOBAL WEATHER - After several delays throughout 2015, the Jason-3 satellite is now ready to take its place as the latest instrument deployed to track the changing surface height of Earth’s oceans. A joint effort between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the European EUMETSAT and the French CNES organizations, Jason-3 will use the high-precision Poseidon-3B radar altimeter to observe the topography and the height of our planet’s ice-free oceans over time. SpaceX will try again to land the Falcon 9’s first stage on one of the NewSpace firm’s Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ships for the launch of Jason 3. Photo Credit: SpaceX The topography of the ocean surface - that is, its own hills and valleys - affects the way the waters transfer heat around the planet.    More
(Source: Space Flight Insider - Jan 17)

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