RUSSIA EYES SOYUZ UPGRADES FOR MISSION AROUND THE MOON - Space tourism firm Space Adventures says two customers have paid deposits for a flight around the moon on a Soyuz spacecraft, but the trip requires major changes to the Russian crew capsule, a vehicle that has seen only incremental upgrades in recent decades. While the Virginia-based company works with Russian engineers to make the venerable Soyuz ferry craft ready for a lunar voyage, Space Adventures president Tom Shelley said last week he expects prices for tourist trips to the International Space Station to fall once U.S.-built capsules begin flying astronauts into low Earth orbit.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jun 18)

ZOMBIE SATELLITE ISEE-3 SUMMONED BACK AFTER YEARS IN THE GRAVEYARD - Back in May, a group of engineers successfully managed to reestablish contact with NASA's Vintage ISEE-3 Spacecraft satellite, overcoming numerous obstacles in the process. Now, the engineers responsible for taking control of ISEE-3 are hoping to bring the zombie satellite back home. If all goes as planned, engines will be firing up in a couple of weeks. The story of how the engineers reestablished contact with ISEE-3 is a fascinating one.   More
(Source: Design & Trend - Jun 17)

NASA CLIMATE OBSERVATORY MOVED TO THE LAUNCH PAD - NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory, a reflight of the spacecraft by the same name, was mounted atop its Delta 2 rocket booster at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Saturday. Replacing the observatory lost in a 2009 launch failure, OCO No. 2 seeks to understand how the Earth breaths and map global carbon dioxide levels. The craft was hauled to Space Launch Complex 2 early Saturday morning for hoisting aboard its rocket, the United Launch Alliance Delta 2 that returns to action after a two-year hiatus.    More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 15)

GLONASS NAVIGATION SATELLITE LAUNCHED BY SOYUZ ROCKET - Russia launched a Glonass navigation satellite Saturday on top of a Soyuz rocket, releasing the spacecraft into orbit about 12,000 miles above Earth three-and-a-half hours later. The Soyuz 2-1b rocket, crowned with a Russian Fregat upper stage, lifted off at 1716 GMT (1:16 p.m. EDT) from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome about 500 miles north of Moscow. After a nine-minute ascent powered by the Soyuz rocket's three kerosene-fueled core stages, a Fregat upper stage fired its engine three times to boost the mission's Glonass navigation payload into a 12,000-mile-high orbit.    More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 15)

RUSSIAN SOYUZ-2.1B CARRIER ROCKET TO SEND SECOND GLONASS-M SATELLITE INTO ORBIT - A Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket with the Fregat space tug is to blast off Saturday from a launch pad at Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia's Arkhangelsk region and put into orbit second GLONASS-M satellite in 2014. On June 11 the rocket was rolled out onto the Plesetsk State Testing Cosmodrome where it underwent the final cycle of prelaunch tests and was finally approved for the scheduled June 14 launch. This will be the second launch of GLONASS-M satellite this year and the fourth time when it was sent to orbit from Plesetsk.   More
(Source: The Voice of Russia - Jun 15)

ISRO PLANNING TO LAUNCH FRENCH SATELLITE SPOT 7 ON JUNE 26 - ISRO is planning to launch its next rocket PSLV C23 carrying a French remote sensing satellite SPOT 7, along with four others from Sriharikota spaceport on June 26, a senior official said on Friday. “As of now, we have scheduled the launch of PSLV C23 at 9.50 a.m. on June 26. A 52-hour countdown has been planned, which would commence at 6 a.m. on June 24,” the ISRO official told PTI. SPOT 7 is an Earth observing satellite, similar to Indian Remote Satellite System (IRSS), he said, adding four other satellites would also be launched on the same day.   More
(Source: The Hindu - Jun 14)

NEXT-GEN NOAA SATELLITE ONE STEP CLOSER TO LAUNCH - Instrument development for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s next-generation polar-orbiting environmental satellite continues to meet milestones on time. This week, the second of five state-of-the-art instruments that will fly aboard the $11 billion Joint Polar Satellite System completed its pre-shipment review, which means the Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite is ready for integration with the actual satellite.   More
(Source: Nextgov - Jun 14)

SPACEX TEST FIRES ENGINE; LAUNCH DATE STILL TBD - SpaceX briefly test-fired a Falcon 9 rocket's engines today, but it's unknown when a full-duration firing will occur to launch a group of six commercial satellites from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. A planned launch Sunday evening was delayed to allow time for more tests on one of Orbcomm Inc. satellites, which had experienced an issue described as minor earlier in the week. "In an effort to be as cautious as possible, it was decided to perform further analysis to verify that the issue observed on one satellite during final integration has been fully addressed," Orbcomm said in a statement Friday.   More
(Source: Florida Today - Jun 14)

SMOKE DETECTED ABOARD STATION TUESDAY; CREW IN NO DANGER - At around 2:40 p.m. EDT Tuesday, the International Space Station crew reported a small amount of smoke emanating from a vent in the Zvezda Service Module. In line with standard protocol, flight controllers at mission control in Houston followed emergency procedures to isolate the Russian segment ventilation system. Expedition 40 Commander Steve Swanson reported that the smoke quickly subsided and the crew was not in any danger.   More
(Source: RedOrbit - Jun 11)

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