THREE HAM RADIO LAUNCHES PLANNED BY BEIJING - Beijing is thought to be planning three separate launches of satellites carrying amateur radio payloads in the next few weeks. The launches were highlighted on the Social Media site Weibo and have been discussed on a space flight forum. On September 19, 2015 the new CZ-6 rocket is expected to launch from Taiyuan carrying nine satellites with amateur radio payloads. Six XW-2 satellites will carry 435/145 MHz SSB/CW transponders.   More
(Source: AMSAT-UK - Sep 7)

SPACEX IS WORKING ON A 'PIZZA BOX' THAT SHOULD SCARE YOUR INTERNET COMPANY - Bringing cheap, high-speed internet access to every inch of the Earth would change the world as we know it. And probably anger your internet company. In January, entrepreneur Elon Musk announced that's exactly what he intends to do with his rocket company SpaceX. The idea is to launch 4,000 internet-providing satellites into orbit by 2030. Writer Tim Urban sat down with a top SpaceX engineer to learn more about how this game-changing satellite network will work.    More
(Source: Tech Insider - Sep 6)

ASTRONAUT SNAPS STUNNING LIGHTNING STRIKE SHOT FROM SPACE STATION - Kjell Lindgren shared this image on the internet earlier this week, which shows a lightning strike that reflected off the solar panels of the International Space Station. nternational Space Station astronaut Kjell Lindgren struck photography gold earlier this week when he captured a picture of a lightning strike on Earth, which lit up the solar panels of the International Space Station. Lindgren took the picture when the ISS was flying over the Pacific Ocean, and later uploaded it to his Twitter account.    More
(Source: Sputnik International - Sep 6)

HOW TO KILL A SATELLITE—AND WHY YOU’D WANT TO DO IT - Odds are you wouldn’t care much if a team of researchers told you they’d mastered a multi-objective optimization problem to create a reliable orbit propagator (with the help of resonant tesseral harmonics, of course. I mean, duh). Odds are better that you’d pay attention, however, if they told you that what they’d actually done was reduce the risk that you’ll be clobbered by a flaming piece of space junk one day. So let’s go with that second explanation, because that’s what an international team of researchers have accomplished, according to a study just published on sciencedirect.com.   More
(Source: TIME - Sep 5)

NASA BOOKS EARLY SEATS ON COMMERCIAL SPACE FLIGHTS - Two years before planned commercial space taxis are scheduled to make their initial manned test flights, NASA already is in the midst of contracting for operational missions to carry working astronauts into orbit. A senior National Aeronautics and Space Administration official said the U.S. agency has formally ordered one such flight for Boeing Co. ’s CST-100 capsule to transport crew members to the international space station, and is talking with Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, about contracting for a similar flight. Kathryn Lueders, the agency’s program manager for commercial crew, also told a space conference here this week that by looking to contract for multiple flights, NASA is “laying the groundwork for the service and the crew rotation missions” that will be needed past the end of the decade.   More
(Source: Wall Street Journal - Sep 5)

INDIA TO LAUNCH INDONESIAN SATELLITE ON SEPTEMBER 27 - Indonesia is set to launch a domestically-made satellite from India on September 27, a media report said on Thursday. The LAPAN A2/Orari satellite was produced entirely in Indonesia by the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN) in 2012. It is a successor to LAPAN A1/Tubsat, which was launched in India in 2007, The Jakarta Post reported. "Today, I'm officially sending off the LAPAN A2/Orari satellite," said President Joko Widodo during the launch ceremony on Thursday. The satellite will be shipped to India on Friday. It will be launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.   More
(Source: NDTV - Sep 4)

CROWDED HOUSE! INTERNATIONAL CREW ARRIVES AT SPACE STATION - Three new crewmembers arrived at the International Space Station early Friday morning, boosting the orbiting lab's population to a level not seen since late 2013. A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying cosmonaut Sergey Volkov, the European Space Agency's Andreas Mogensen and Kazakhstan's Aidyn Aimbetov docked with the space station's Poisk module at 3:39 a.m. EDT (0739 GMT) Friday (Sept. 4), two days after blasting off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The hatches separating the two spacecraft are scheduled to open at 6:15 a.m. ET (1015 GMT) Friday, NASA officials said. When that happens, the Soyuz travelers will float aboard the $100 billion orbiting complex, joining the six crewmembers already there — cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko, Mikhail Kornienko and Gennady Padalka; NASA astronauts Scott Kelly and Kjell Lindgren; and Japanese spaceflyer Kimiya Yui.   More
(Source: Yahoo News - Sep 4)

ATLAS 5 ROCKET BOOSTS NAVY COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE INTO SPACE - In a spectacular dawn climb to space, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket boosted a high-power Navy communications satellite into orbit Wednesday, the fourth of five planned relay stations providing high-speed smartphone-like capabilities to troops around the world. Running two days late because of concerns about then-Tropical Storm Erika, the Atlas 5's Russian-built RD-180 first stage engine roared to life at 6:18 a.m. EDT (GMT-4) followed by ignition of five solid-fuel strap-on boosters that quickly pushed the rocket away from pad 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.   More
(Source: CBS News - Sep 3)

SOYUZ TMA-18M LAUNCHES ON TWO DAY TRIP TO ISS - A Russian Soyuz FG rocket has launched the Soyuz TMA-18M spacecraft on the latest mission to the International Space Station at 04:37 GMT (00:37 EDT) on Wednesday. Soyuz TMA-18M is delivering one new Expedition crewmember to ISS while the two TMA-18M Flight Engineers will return to Earth with Soyuz TMA-16M on 11 September. Soyuz TMA-18M is an unusual flight to the ISS in that two of the three crewmembers launching aboard the Soyuz will not be staying at the Space Station for an extended duration mission.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Sep 2)

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