ENHANCED ROCKET ENGINE TO POWER DELTA 4 FIRST STAGE WEDNESDAY - Using a new, uprated main engine for the first time on a rocket of its kind, a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Medium+ vehicle will soar into space Wednesday night carrying a $566 million Air Force communications satellite. The enhanced RS-68A main engine will power the medium-lift rocket off the pad at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 37 with the Wideband Global SATCOM satellite No. 7 bound for a super-synchronous transfer orbit. The evening’s launch opportunity extends from 8:07 to 8:46 p.m. EDT. Weather forecasters are projecting a 60 percent chance of favorable conditions for launch, with clouds and lightning the primary concerns.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jul 20)

AN ASTEROID MINING TEST VEHICLE JUST LAUNCHED FROM THE SPACE STATION - Planetary Resources, a company that wants to mine asteroids for precious materials, has just launched a demonstration vehicle to test out its asteroid mining technologies. The breadbox-sized Arkyd 3 Reflight (A3R) is so-named because the original Arkyd 3 died a fiery death in the Orbital Sciences explosion in October. This one survived its launch to the International Space Station in April, and today, astronauts booted it out of an airlock to see how it fares in low Earth orbit. The vehicle’s mission is to test out components that the company later plans to send into deep space to visit resource-rich asteroids, with the goal of extracting water, which can be broken down in to hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel, and valuable metals, including platinum.   More
(Source: Popular Science - Jul 17)

DEBRIS FROM OLD RUSSIAN SATELLITE FORCED ISS CREW INTO CONTINGENCY OPS - Life aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has returned to normal after a late conjunction threat forced the Station’s crew into contingency operations. The implementation of Flight Rule B4-101 – resulting in the crew taking up the “safe haven” of a docked Russian Soyuz vehicle – was required during a close pass of debris from an old Russian weather satellite. The threat of space debris is a continuous consideration for all spacefaring vehicles. The ISS has the safety blanket of Space Command/NORAD, which tracks relatively large pieces of debris – usually originating from expended satellite and rocket hardware.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Jul 17)

ARIANESPACE SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHES STAR ONE C4 AND MSG-4 SATELLITES - On Wednesday, July 15, Arianespace successfully launched a Brazilian communications satellite Star One C4 and a European weather satellite MSG-4 into a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO). The satellites were lifted off at 6:42 p.m. local time (5:42 p.m. EDT; 21:42 GMT) from the Kourou Spaceport located in Kourou, French Guiana, using the company’s powerful Ariane 5 launcher. The mission had previously been set for July 8, but it was delayed by Arianespace due to last-minute precautionary checks on the rocket and spacecraft   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Insider - Jul 16)

ATLAS 5 DELIVERS GPS SATELLITE 11,000 MILES UP - The ubiquitous Global Positioning System that ties the space program to everyday life on Earth, providing precise navigation to the world through a constellation of orbiting satellites, will be strengthened courtesy of a new craft launched Wednesday. GPS signals help civilians find their way, keep outdoorsmen from getting lost, farmers to cultivate their fields with precision agriculture and give exact timing accuracy for everything from bank ATMs to credit card machines at the gas pump. “New ways to utilize GPS technology are emerging daily,” said Col. Michael Rokaw, Global Positioning Systems Directorate’s Space Systems Division chief. “GPS has become an integral part of technology that affects the lives of billions of users around the world.”   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jul 16)

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)

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