SATELLITE COMES BACK TO LIFE, DEPLOYS SOLAR SAIL ON SECOND TRY - Mission managers say the shoebox-sized LightSail satellite powered up its tiny deployment motor Sunday, and data from the diminutive spacecraft indicate its experimental solar sail unfurled in orbit hundreds of miles above Earth. The deployment sequence began at 3:47 p.m. EDT (1947 GMT) off the west coast of Baja California, when LightSail was in radio contact with a ground station in San Luis Obispo, California. “Telemetry received on the ground showed motor counts climbing to the halfway point before LightSail traveled out of range,” wrote Jason Davis, a blogger who has provided daily updates since LightSail’s launch for the Planetary Society, which manages the mission. “Power levels were consistent with ground-based deployment tests, and the spacecraft’s cameras were on.”   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 8)

THREE SPACE STATION CREW MEMBERS SET TO RETURN TO EARTH JUNE 11 - After more than six months of performing scientific research and technology demonstrations in space, three International Space Station crew members are scheduled to depart the orbiting laboratory Thursday, June 11. SpaceCoastDaily.com via NASA TV will provide coverage of their station departure and return to Earth. Coverage begins at 10:40 a.m. Wednesday, June 10, when Expedition 43 Commander Terry Virts of NASA hands over command of the space station to cosmonaut Gennady Padalka of the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos).   More
(Source: SpaceCoastDaily.com - Jun 7)

RUSSIA LAUNCHES FIRST SOYUZ ROCKET SINCE SPACE STATION MISSION FAILURE - A Russian Soyuz booster rocket has successfully launched a satellite for the first time since a much-publicized failure in April. The Defense Ministry said the Soyuz 2.1A rocket was launched Friday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, placing a Russian military satellite into its designated orbit. The failure of the previous Soyuz launch on April 28 led to the loss of an unmanned Progress cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.   More
(Source: NBCNews - Jun 6)

N. KOREA DEVELOPING NEW SATELLITE, DEFENDS SPACE PROGRAM - North Korean space agency officials say the country is developing a more advanced Earth observation satellite and are defending their right to conduct rocket launches whenever they see fit, despite protests by the United States and others that the launches are aimed primarily at honing military-use technologies. The North launched its first and only satellite in 2012. The claim that it is working on another, made in an interview last week with an AP Television crew in Pyongyang, comes amid a flurry of attention to the country’s fledgling space agency, including a visit by leader Kim Jong Un to a new satellite control center that was repeatedly broadcast on North Korean TV early last month.   More
(Source: Washington Post - Jun 5)

RUSSIA'S SPACE PROGRAM IN CRISIS? - Ever since the Cold War-era space race with the United States, Russia has taken immense national pride in its cosmic exploits. It was a Soviet satellite -- Sputnik 1 -- that was the first, in 1957, to break out of Earth's gravitational grip. 1960 witnessed the first living creatures make it into orbit and back again. Soviet space dogs, Belka and Strelka, are still widely celebrated for their achievement -- although the memory of the grey rabbit, 42 mice, two rats, and numerous flies that accompanied them on their extraterrestrial journey has faded. The following year, in 1961, a Soviet cosmonaut pipped the Americans into space. Yuri Gagarin became a household name and a potent symbol of what the Kremlin would have seen as Communist superiority over the West.   More
(Source: CNN - Jun 4)

LAUNCH OF U.S.-FRENCH OCEANOGRAPHY SATELLITE POSTPONED - The launch of a U.S.-French oceanography satellite from California has been postponed from July 22 after engineers discovered contamination in one of the spacecraft’s thrusters at its factory in France. NOAA announced the launch slip Tuesday. Officials did not set a new launch date. “The launch of the Jason 3 mission will not occur July 22, as announced previously,” NOAA said in a statement. “During spacecraft testing, engineers located contamination in one of the four thrusters on the spacecraft. The problem thruster has been replaced. An investigation into the contamination will continue during the next two weeks, as the new thruster is tested.”   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 3)

BOEING SPACE CAPSULE GETS NASA'S 1ST COMMERCIAL CREW FLIGHT ORDER - NASA has awarded Boeing with the first order for a commercial crew change flight to the International Space Station once the company's new CST-100 space taxi is ready for manned flights in 2017. Both Boeing and SpaceX are building private spaceships to ferry astronauts on round trips to the space station for NASA. While SpaceX has not received an order yet, NASA said the company will likely receive one later this year. Who flies first will be determined at a later date. "Final development and certification are top priority for NASA and our commercial providers, but having an eye on the future is equally important to the commercial crew and station programs," said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s commercial crew program, in a statement.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jun 3)

PLANETARY SOCIETY REGAINS COMMUNICATION WITH LIGHTSAIL SPACECRAFT - The Planetary Society says it has regained contact with its LightSail satellite. Last week fears arose that the organization had permanently lost touch with the tiny spacecraft, which launched earlier this month to lay the groundwork for testing a solar sail in Earth orbit. The private organization, headed by Bill Nye, launched LightSail on May 20 aboard an Atlas V rocket. Two days later the "cube sat" went silent due to a suspected software glitch. Planetary Society engineers predicted the spacecraft would reboot itself, but they weren't entirely confident that would happen.   More
(Source: NPR - Jun 1)

THE SILLY REASON THE CHINESE AREN’T ALLOWED ON THE SPACE STATION - Geopolitics can be child’s play—literally. How else would you describe the did-not! did-too! brawl that can result when one country crosses another country’s invisible line in the playroom that is the South China Sea? How else would you describe the G-8 canceling its playdate in Sochi after Russia climbed over the fence to Ukraine’s yard? Something similar is true of the International Space Station (ISS), the biggest, coolest, most excellent tree house there ever was. Principally built and operated by the U.S., the ISS has welcomed aboard astronauts from 15 different countries, including such space newbies as South Africa, Brazil, The Netherlands and Malaysia. But China? Nuh-uh. Never has happened, never gonna’ happen.   More
(Source: TIME - May 30)

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