NEW GPS NAVIGATION SATELLITE HEADS INTO SPACE THIS WEEK - The Global Positioning System, its precision navigation and timing services made possible by the U.S. Air Force and provided free-of-charge to the planet’s civilian population, is a marvel of the modern world, and the orbiting network will receive a fresh satellite Wednesday. The $245 million GPS 2F-10 satellite is scheduled for liftoff from Cape Canaveral aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket during an available launch opportunity that extends 18 minutes from 11:36 to 11:54 a.m. EDT. Weather forecasters are predicting a 70 percent chance of meeting the launch rules.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jul 13)

DEORBITSAIL LAUNCHED - The DeorbitSail CubeSat, built by researchers and radio amateurs at the Surrey Space Centre in Guildford, was launched on Friday, July 10, 2015 carrying a 1200 bps BPSK beacon on 145.975 MHz The first DeorbitSail packets reported to the Surrey Space Centre were from Ken W7KKE in Lincoln, OR, USA. Nitin Muttin VU3TYG reported receiving signals on the 1810 pass over India. The DeorbitSail project is a collaboration to build a 3U CubeSat sized satellite with a deployable sail that will demonstrate rapid deorbiting.    More
(Source: Southgate - Jul 12)

U.S. AIR FORCE’S ORS-5 SATELLITE TO LAUNCH ON MINOTAUR 4 - Orbital ATK has won a $23.6 million contract to launch a small space-surveillance satellite for the U.S. Air Force’s Operationally Responsive Space Office aboard a Minotaur 4 rocket in 2017. Orbital ATK will launch the satellite from Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, according to a spokeswoman at the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center. The launch will mark the first for a Minotaur rocket, a vehicle based in part on excess missile hardware, from Cape Canaveral and the first from that particular pad since 1999.    More
(Source: Spasce News - Jul 11)

ORBITAL SAIL, EARTH-WATCHING SATELLITES LAUNCHED BY PSLV - Five satellites made in Britain to track the expansion of Chinese cities and demonstrate a new sail design to clean up space junk blasted off Friday on top of an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. Making its 30th flight since 1993, the PSLV ignited a solid-fueled first stage and a quartet of strap-on boosters at 1628 GMT (12:28 p.m. EDT; 9:58 Indian time) and quickly fired away from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on India’s east coast. Two more solid rocket boosters ignited moments later to give the 14-story rocket an extra kick. A hydrazine-fueled Vikas second stage engine and a third stage motor took over several minutes into the mission, then a fourth stage maneuvered the PSLV’s five payloads into a near-ciruclar polar orbit.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jul 11)

NASA INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION ON-ORBIT STATUS 9 JULY 2015 - The International Space Station will get an orbital boost tonight to get ready for upcoming Soyuz crew missions. On the ground, three new crew members are preparing for their Friday departure to the launch site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The orbiting Expedition 44 trio, with Commander Gennady Padalka and One-Year crew members Scott Kelly and Mikhail Kornienko, is looking forward to expanding to three new crew members. Soyuz Commander Oleg Kononenko and Flight Engineers Kjell Lindgren and Kimiya Yui will take a six-hour ride July 22 in the Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft for a five month stay in space.   More
(Source: Space Ref - Jul 11)

SEE ALL THE SATELLITES AND SPACE JUNK CIRCLING EARTH IN REAL-TIME - From down here on the ground, space looks like a pristine void. But Earth's orbit is actually crowded with a ton of stuff, from human-made satellites to many smaller pieces of debris whirling around at dangerously high speeds, as the film Gravity so memorably dramatized. In fact, there are an estimated 500,000 or so smaller orbital debris (between one and 10 centimeters in diameter) and about 21,000 larger bits (larger than 10 centimeters) spinning around Earth right now, according to NASA's Orbital Debris Program Office. And now you can see all but the smallest bits moving around us right now thanks to "Stuff In Space," a mesmerizing new website designed by young programmer James Yoder, which tracks the paths of hundreds of thousands of orbital objects in realtime.    More
(Source: Pupular Science - Jul 9)

COUNTDOWN BEGINS FOR ISRO PSLV SATELLITE LAUNCH ON FRIDAY - The Indian space agency on Wednesday morning began the countdown for the July 10 rocket launch that would carry five British satellites. According to Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), the 62 hours and 30 minutes countdown for the July 10th night launch of rocket Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) XL variant began at 7:28am IST on Wednesday. The rocket is scheduled to blast off at 9:58pm Friday from the first launch pad with five satellites together weighing around 1,440kg, for an undisclosed fee. Since 1999 India till date has launched 40 satellites of other countries and the successful launch of the five British satellites would take the tally to 45.   More
(Source: NDTV - Jul 9)

THIS PAC-MAN SPACECRAFT WILL DEVOUR A SATELLITE - here’s a lot of trash in space. Rather than add more to the space garbage dump, Swiss researchers hope to build a spacecraft that eats small, non-functioning satellites, Michael Rundle reports for Wired UK. Scientists at Switzerland’s EPFL Center for Space Engineering announced their plans this week. However, the mission, dubbed CleanSpace One, has been in the works for a long time. Switzerland launched its first satellite in 2009—a tiny cubesat called SwissCube. But researchers knew that like all satellites, the SwissCube wouldn't last forever. After three years of brainstorming, researchers are now in the process of designing and building a spacecraft equipped with a camera to find the satellite and a net to snag and eat it in orbit.    More
(Source: Smithsonian - Jul 9)

AIR FORCE COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE JOINED TO DELTA 4 FOR JULY 22 LAUNCH - For the second time this week, United Launch Alliance has delivered an Air Force payload to one of its Cape Canaveral pads for liftoff in July. On Monday, crews mounted the next Global Positioning System satellite atop an Atlas 5 rocket for blastoff July 15. On Wednesday, it was the Wideband Global SATCOM satellite No. 7 being transported to Complex 37 and attached to a Delta 4 rocket for launch July 22. Liftoff is scheduled for 8:07 p.m. EDT. They will be ULA’s 97th and 98th launches, respectively. WGS 7 will be boosted into a super-synchronous transfer orbit more than 36,000 nautical miles high during the launch of the Delta 4 Medium+ (5,4) configured rocket with four strap-on solids.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jul 9)

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