SOYUZ ROCKET FLIES CRITICAL TEST MISSION WITH PROGRESS-M - new and improved Progress cargo ship is heading to the International Space Station, ISS. The latest upgrade of the veteran Russian space freighter and tanker is designated Progress-MS. In the ISS flight manifest, the first launch of the Progress-MS vehicle is known as 62P, while in the production documentation it is listed as No. 431.   More
(Source: RussianSpaceWeb.com - Dec 22)

RUSSIAN CARGO SHIP LAUNCHING TO SPACE STATION MONDAY - Russia’s Progress supply ship is getting an upgrade with a cargo launch to the International Space Station on Monday. The Progress MS-01 spacecraft enclosed within the Soyuz rocket’s nose shroud is set for liftoff at 0844:39 GMT (3:44:39 a.m. EST) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, beginning a two-day chase of the International Space Station set to conclude with an orbital linkup at 1031 GMT (5:31 a.m. EST) Wednesday.   More
(Source: SpaceFlignt Now - Dec 21)

FALCON 9’S RETURN-TO-FLIGHT LAUNCH DELAYED 24 HOURS - SpaceX called off a try Sunday to launch a package of Orbcomm communications satellites from Cape Canaveral, eyeing a better chance to land the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage booster Monday, according to Elon Musk, the company’s billionaire founder. Launch crews were preparing for liftoff Sunday evening, but Musk tweeted a few hours before the scheduled launch time that the mission would slip until Monday. Musk said a Monte Carlo simulation run, a type of probabilistic computerized mathematic model, showed a 10 percent better chance of nailing the Falcon 9’s first stage landing at Cape Canaveral on Monday.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 21)

RUSSIAN PROGRESS-M28M CARGO SPACECRAFT UNDOCKS FROM INT’L SPACE STATION - The Russian Progress-M28M cargo spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) after delivering supplies and will now be drowned in the so-called spacecraft cemetery in the Pacific Ocean, a Russian Mission Control Center spokesperson said Saturday. “The Progress-M28M was undocked from the ISS at the precalculated moment. Water landing of the cargo spacraft’s unburned fragments in the non-navigational area of the Pacific is expected to happen at 14:28 Moscow time [11:28 GMT]," the spokesperson told RIA Novosti.   More
(Source: Sputnik International - Dec 20)

ISRO'S ANTRIX SAYS NEARLY 30 SATELLITE LAUNCH ORDERS IN THE PIPELINE - Emerging as a global competitive provider for satellite launches, Isro's commercial arm Antrix Corporation has almost 30 orders at hand from different countries for satellite launches which are scheduled to be completed in next two to three years. Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) Chairman A S Kiran Kumar said tonight that the organisation is working on increasing its capabilities on critical technologies. "We have (orders of) almost 30 odd satellites from about 7-8 countries. We have to put them into orbit in next two-three years and we are working on it," he said in Jaipur.   More
(Source: NDTV - Dec 19)

EMERGENCY SPACEWALK PLANNED FOR SPACE STATION - The International Space Station (ISS) has had a rough go of late, with no fewer than three launch pad accidents that prevented cargo vehicles from getting to orbit in the past year alone. Now another problem aboard the ISS itself may prevent the vehicles that do get to space from actually docking with the station—and one of those vehicles is on its way soon. That could necessitate an emergency spacewalk by commander Scott Kelly and astronaut Tim Kopra on Monday or Tuesday.   More
(Source: Time - Dec 19)

WITH TODAY’S LAUNCH, GALILEO CONSTELLATION NOW TWELVE - The pace of deploying Europe’s own satellite navigation system continued to increase with today’s launch of the latest pair of Galileo satellites, doubling the number of satellites in space within nine months. Galileo 11 and 12 lifted off together at 11:51 GMT (12:51 CET, 08:51 local time) atop a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana. This sixth Galileo launch was a textbook operation: all Soyuz stages performed as planned, culminating in the Fregat upper stage deploying the twin satellites into orbit close to 23,500 km altitude, around 3 hours and 48 minutes after liftoff.   More
(Source: - Dec 18)

CHINA SENDS DARK MATTER PROBE INTO ORBIT - China launched the first in a series of planned space science probes Thursday, putting a satellite into orbit to study high-energy cosmic rays for signals hinting at hypothesized clumps of dark matter that have eluded detection for decades. The Dark Matter Particle Explorer, or DAMPE, mission is the first dedicated astrophysics observatory put into orbit by China. Fitted with detectors sensitive to gamma rays, electrons and high-energy cosmic rays, the DAMPE satellite will scoop up particles speeding through the cosmos and measure their energy, direction and electric charge, according to mission scientists.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 18)

WALLOPS ISLAND READIES FOR FIRST LAUNCH OF SPACE STATION CARGO SINCE EXPLOSION - The crater — 50-feet long by 30-feet deep — is filled, a crack in a reinforced concrete wall beneath the launch pad is repaired and a set of stairs blown away by the blast has been replaced. The only signs that a rocket carrying a load of cargo bound for the International Space Station exploded seconds after liftoff more than year ago are a few black streaks of charring, one marking the face of a 310-foot water tower overlooking the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and the Atlantic Ocean.   More
(Source: The Baltimore Sun - Dec 18)

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