NASA TV TO BROADCAST CARGO SHIP DEPARTURE FROM SPACE STATION - Five weeks after delivering approximately five tons of supplies and experiments to the International Space Station, an unpiloted Japanese cargo ship is scheduled to depart the station Monday, Sept. 28. NASA Television will provide live coverage of the departure beginning at 11 a.m. EDT. Robotic flight controllers in the Mission Control Center at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston will begin preparing the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) H-II Transport Vehicle-5 (HTV-5) for unberthing from its port on the station's Harmony module several hours before its release. Expedition 45 Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui of JAXA, backed up by NASA Flight Engineer Kjell Lindgren, will command the station's Canadarm2 robotic arm to release HTV-5, loaded with station trash at about 11:20 a.m. A few hours after its release, the cargo ship will fire its engines to begin a controlled deorbit and entry through Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up over the Pacific Ocean.   More
(Source: PR Newswire - Sep 23)

SPACE STATION ASTRONAUTS GOT AN AWESOME AURORA SHOW THIS WEEKEND - The crewmembers on the International Space Station got quite the cosmic show this weekend when bright green and red aurora sparked by a solar storm danced above Earth. NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren posted psychedelic photos of the celestial light show on Twitter Sunday, sharing their incredible views of auroras from space with people that may not have been able to see the curtains of light covering the planet. Saturday and Sunday's auroras were likely sparked by a powerful solar storm that impacted Earth over the weekend. A burst of super-heated plasma called a coronal mass ejection shot out from the sun on Sept. 18, arriving at Earth over the weekend, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center.    More
(Source: Mashable - Sep 22)

ISRO TO LAUNCH ASTROSAT ON-BOARD PSLV-C30 ON SEPT 28 AT 10 AM - ISRO has announced that the ASTROSAT it has been building and assembling for a while now is ready for launch. The space & research organisation will be blasting off the astronomical observation satellite from PSLV-C30 on September 28th (Monday) at 10 am from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, SHAR. Along with Astrosat, ISRO is launching 6 other international satellites (4 from the US, 1 from Indonesia and 1 from Canada) as well. It is important to note here that Astrosat is India's first dedicated multi-wavelength space observation satellite. Some are even calling it India's Hubble - the US-European joint space observatory that has been successful in discovering new galaxies. ASTROSAT is the fourth such satellite in space after Hubble, Japan's Suzaku and Russia's Spektr R.    More
(Source: CrazyEngineers - Sep 21)

CHINA LAUNCHES 20 MICRO SATELLITES USING NEW CARRIER ROCKET - China today successfully placed 20 micro satellites into space using its latest carrier rocket powered by pollution-free fuels, boosting the Communist giant's competitiveness in the global satellite launch sector, state media reported. The rocket, Long March-6, was launched from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in north China's Shanxi Province which carried 20 micro-satellites into the space for space tests. The new 29.3 metres high rocket, fuelled by liquid propellant made of ..    More
(Source: Economic Times - Sep 20)

ASTRONAUTS ON THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION WATCHED 'THE MARTIAN' - There may not be the freshest food up there, but living in space does have some perks. Astronaut Scott Kelly, who is currently spending a full year in space at the International Space Station, tweeted on Sunday that the crew was able to get in a Saturday night movie — except you can't even watch this movie on Earth yet. According to Kelly, the movie of choice on Saturday was The Martian, a film based on the best-selling book by Andy Weir about an astronaut who is stranded on Mars, which sounds absolutely terrifying to watch in space.   More
(Source: Marhable - Sep 20)

CHINA LAUNCHES NEW TYPE OF CARRIER ROCKET - China on Sunday launched a new type of rocket which will be primarily used for carrying satellites aloft, state media reported, as the country races ahead with an ambitious space programme. The Long March-6, a newly developed carrier rocket which uses liquid propellant, took off from a launch base in the northern province of Shanxi on Sunday morning carrying 20 "micro" satellites, the official Xinhua news agency said. The white rocket, imprinted with the Chinese flag at the to ..    More
(Source: Economic Times - Sep 20)

U.S. KEEPING A CLOSE EYE ON NORTH KOREAN SATELLITE LAUNCH SITE - U.S. intelligence analysts are scrutinizing a newly modified North Korean satellite launch facility but see no imminent threat despite the reclusive government's latest threats of nuclear attack against the United States. U.S. officials say North Korean crews have upgraded the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in recent months by building new rail tunnels to move equipment and new buildings where a long-range ballistic missile could be assembled. "The goal is to prevent us from seeing what they're doing," said a U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the intelligence assessments. "Stealth has been central to each facet of the new design."   More
(Source: Los Angeles Times - Sep 20)

SERPENS CUBESAT DEPLOYED FROM ISS - On September 17, 2015 the Brazilian SERPENS CubeSat carrying an amateur radio payload, call sign PY0ESA, was deployed from the International Space Station (ISS). SERPENS LogoSERPENS is a 3U CubeSat which was developed by students at the University of Brasilia and focuses on meteorological data collection. The SERPENS Amateur Radio Page shows these downlink frequencies: 145.980 MHz using GFSK modulation at 9600 bps and AX.25 protocol transmiting two different beacons. The first occurs every 10 seconds with the message “SERPENS A”. This is implemented for easy identification of the satellite when searching for it.   More
(Source: AMSAT-UK - Sep 18)

CHINESE AMATEUR RADIO SATELLITE LAUNCH NOW SCHEDULED FOR SEPTEMBER 18 - Nine Amateur Radio satellites will be among 20 satellites set to launch on September 18 from China. China Amateur Satellite Group CAMSAT CEO Alan Kung, BA1DU, told ARRL that the satellites will head into space at 2300 UTC and separate from the rocket 15:14 after launch. Four of the microsatellites and two of the CubeSats included in the launch have been designated as XW-2A through XW-2F. The other three satellites — a CubeSat, a nanosatellite, and a picosatellite, carry the designations CAS-3G through CAS-3I, respectively. The nine satellites carrying Amateur Radio payloads were delivered to the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in Central China in August. The launch has been postponed twice. Initially CAMSAT had planned to launch the satellites in mid-July. Then the launch was put off until “September 7 or 8.”   More
(Source: ARRL - Sep 18)

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