FIRST SCOTTISH SATELLITE READY TO LAUNCH - Scotland's first satellite is scheduled for launch later. UKube-1 is a cubesat, packing six payloads into a space not much bigger than a shoebox. Its experiments include a study of space weather and a project to let school pupils interact with the satellite. It was commissioned by the UK Space Agency and built by Clyde Space, a Glasgow company which has a big share of the market for cubesat components. They already have orders for another two complete satellites, and say they are planning to mass-manufacture hundreds or even thousands more. More (Source: BBC News - Jul 8)
RUSSIA TO PHASE OUT OLDER SOYUZ ROCKETS FOR INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION RUNS - Russia's Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, will upgrade the Soyuz rocket and secure its supply chain by phasing out older versions in favor of the newer Soyuz-2 series to support the International Space Station, the head of the company that builds Soyuz said. Variants of the Soyuz 2 series rockets are already in use for satellite launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and the European Space Agency launch facility in French Guiana. But now, the rocket is set to begin launching unmanned Progress resupply vehicles to the International Space Station. More (Source: The Moscow Times - Jul 8)
EUTELSAT 3B SATELLITE FULLY FIRED UP AT 3 EAST - Following its successful launch on May 26, Eutelsat Communications (nyse euronext paris:ETL) announces that the EUTELSAT 3B satellite is now fully fired up and providing commercial services at 3° East. Eutelsat's newest satellite is designed to increase and diversify capacity and reach of Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and Brazil. The first commercial satellite to assemble Ku, C and Ka payloads in a single platform, it can operate up to 51 transponders through an innovative configuration that enables customers to select the frequency band most adapted to their applications and targeted service area. More (Source: MarketWatch - Jul 7)
ISS MISSION FROM WALLOPS SET TO LAUNCH JULY 11 - Orbital Sciences Corp.’s second cargo supply mission to the International Space Station will be launched from Wallops Island on Friday, July 11, according to a mission update. The mission is one of eight commercial cargo supply missions planned under Orbital’s contract with NASA. The mission, originally scheduled for June, was pushed back twice after a rocket engine destined for use on a cargo supply mission next year failed during testing at Stennis Space Center in May. More (Source: The News Journal - Jul 6)
LOCKHEED'S 'SPACE FENCE' SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM TO TRACK COSMIC DEBRIS - Right now, millions of objects are whizzing around Earth faster than speeding bullets. Much of this is celestial garbage — remnants of past missions and cosmic collisions that have taken place over half a century. Dead satellites. Spent rocket stages. Astronauts' long-lost equipment. To keep watch over this vast orbiting junkyard, the Air Force has awarded a $914.7-million contract to Lockheed Martin Corp. to develop a surveillance system that will provide a continuous watch over what's up there. The system will enable the U.S. government to detect and track objects as they circle the globe, particularly the most congested areas of space. More (Source: Los Angeles Times - Jul 6)
ANGARA RE-LAUNCH MAY TAKE PLACE ON JULY 9 - The re-launch of Russia's Angara space rocket from Plesetsk may take place on July 9, the Kommersant newspaper reports citing a Defense Ministry source. "A special commission will meet on July 5 to decide on the rocket's launch readiness," the source said, adding that there were no objective reasons for a further postponement. The maiden lift-off of the Angara, Russia's first carrier rocket of post-Soviet design, was automatically cancelled seconds before launch after the system detected a fault in a pressure valve in a liquid oxygen tank. More (Source: The Voice of Russia - Jul 6)
SPACE JUNK DAMAGES ISS US SEGMENT - Space debris has damaged a cooling system radiator of the International Space Station US, the NASA website said. Images of the ISS surface captured by external cameras were being analyzed and there was no leak from the cooling system. The NASA delegation to the Russian Mission Control Center has made no comment on the situation. The ISS is manned by Russia's Alexander Skvortsov, Oleg Artemyev and Maxim Surayev, U.S. astronauts Steve Swanson and Reid Wiseman and German astronaut Alexander Gerst. More (Source: The Voice of Russia - Jul 5)
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)
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