WORKHORSE DELTA 2 RETURNS TO LAUNCH NASA OBSERVATORY - Streaking back into action after a two-and-a-half-year hiatus, a Delta 2 rocket launched NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory No. 2 this morning to watch the Earth breathe from space. The two stage-launcher ignited its Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-27A main engine and three ATK strap-on boosters at 2:56 a.m. PDT (5:56 a.m. EDT) to depart a very foggy Space Launch Complex 2 at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The solid burned for a minute, then waited another 40 seconds to clear offshore oil platforms before jettisoning some 20 miles in altitude. The vehicle had shed half of its 165-ton liftoff weight within the first two minutes of flight. The first stage accelerated the vehicle to an altitude of 70 miles before separating and letting the hypergolic second stage light as the nose cone jettisoned at 11,000 mph some five minutes after launch. The shroud separation came as a sigh of relief to the engineers and scientists on the $468 million mission after that event went horribly wrong and downed the OCO 1 satellite during its launch five years ago.    More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jul 3)

LAUNCH OF CARBON-HUNTING SATELLITE RESET FOR WEDNESDAY - United Launch Alliance will try again Wednesday to put NASA’s long-awaited Orbiting Carbon Observatory into orbit around Earth for a two-year mission, following a last-minute launch scrub early Tuesday. A water deluge system at Space Launch Complex 2 at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base failed to activate as planned, triggering the delay.   More
(Source: Discovery News - Jul 2)

INDIA LAUNCHES FIVE FOREIGN SATELLITES - India's space agency on Monday launched five foreign satellites, reflecting its ambition to get a bigger cut of the world's $300 billion annual space business. The launch also became a vehicle for India's new Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to promote his regional political agenda--namely, to resuscitate India's influence as a regional power and to project himself as a champion for neighboring countries, where China has expanded its footprint. In a speech praising the launch, Mr. Modi called on Indian scientists to develop a satellite that would be shared with neighboring nations "as a gift from India." The space shot's main cargo on Monday was Spot-7, a high-resolution earth-observation satellite belonging to Airbus Defence & Space Co. of Europe. It also carried four other smaller satellites: AISAT from the German Aerospace Center; NLS7.1 and NLS7.2 from Canada's University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies' Space Flight Laboratory; and VELOX-1 from Nangyang Technological University, Singapore.   More
(Source: Wall Street Journal - Jul 2)

FRENCH IMAGING SATELLITE IN ORBIT AFTER LAUNCH FROM INDIA - A commercial imaging satellite blasted off on top of an Indian rocket Monday, reaching orbit a few minutes later to punctuate the deployment of a fleet of French spacecraft designed to monitor Earth with regularity and precision. Carrying a sharp-eyed camera able to resolve objects on the ground as small as cars, the Spot 7 satellite joins an identical craft launched in 2012 to collect daily imagery of any point on the globe. The spacecraft lifted off on top of a 14-story Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle at 0422 GMT (12:22 a.m. EDT) from the Satish Dhawan Space Center on India's east coast. The four-stage rocket released the 1,574-pound satellite in orbit less than 18 minutes later.    More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jul 2)

ESA PLANS TO HARPOON SPACE JUNK WITH NEW SATELLITE - Space junk is a growing problem. Debris from decommissioned satellites and other pieces of material orbit our planet in an ever-widening ring. Now, though, the European Space Agency has a new plan to deal with capturing tumbling satellites: harpooning them.Decades of satellite launches have left Earth surrounded by a halo of space junk. In fact, there are more than 17,000 trackable objects that are larger than a coffee cup that threaten working missions.    More
(Source: Science World Report - Jun 29)

RUSSIA CALLS OFF MAIDEN LAUNCH OF NEW ANGARA ROCKET - The first flight of Russia's new Angara launcher was postponed Friday after engineers discovered a technical problem in the final minutes of the countdown. With Russian President Vladimir Putin watching on video, officials decided to abort the countdown and resolve the problem before another launch attempt. Russian officials did not disclose the issue that caused the delay, and Russia did not immediately announce a new launch date after Friday's canceled launch attempt.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 28)

NASA TO LAUNCH GILBERT-BUILT SATELLITE - A $470 million NASA satellite built by Orbital Sciences Corp. in Gilbert promises to give scientists their clearest picture yet of Earth's warming atmosphere and provide a powerful new tool for climate-change science after its much-anticipated launch next week. From its perch 438 miles above Earth's surface, the Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 will be NASA's first satellite with the sole purpose of measuring atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to global warming.   More
(Source: azcentral.com - Jun 27)

LAST EUROPEAN SPACE TRUCK SET FOR JULY 24 LAUNCH - The last of five robot resupply ships Europe was scheduled to provide for the International Space Station will be taken aloft on July 24, launch firm Arianespace said on Thursday. Known as an Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), the freighter will be launched from Kourou, French Guiana, at 10:41 pm on July 24 (0141 GMT on July 25), it said in a statement in Paris. The European Space Agency (ESA) was contracted to provide five ATVs for the first phase of manned operations by the US-led orbital platform.    More
(Source: Phys.Org - Jun 27)

FALCON 9 LAUNCH FOR ORBCOMM SLIPS TO FIRST WEEK OF JULY - SpaceX and Orbcomm announced Monday they have pushed back the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral with six commercial communications satellites until at least the first week of July. SpaceX and Orbcomm announced Monday they have pushed back the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral with six commercial communications satellites until at least the first week of July.    More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 26)

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