SA’S GOCE SATELLITE WILL RUN OUT OF GAS IN MID-OCTOBER, BEFORE PLUMMETING BACK TO EARTH - fter four years of working to map out Earth’s gravity, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission is nearing its end. The satellite, which has been orbiting Earth since 2009 at the lowest altitude of any research satellite, will reenter our atmosphere soon. GOCE has been called the “Ferrari of space” because of its sleek, aerodynamic design. This designer spacecraft has mapped variations in Earth’s gravity with extreme detail, resulting in a unique model of the “geoid“, which is essentially a virtual surface where water does not flow from one point to another.   More
(Source: Red Orbit - Sep 16)

RUSSIAN SPACE OFFICIAL DENIES REPORT OF PROBLEM IN SOYUZ RETURN - The head of Russia's space agency denied a Russian spacecraft returning from the International Space Station flew blind after sensors failed during descent. One of the crew, cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov, had said the sensor failure meant the crew couldn't gather information about the module's altitude. "After separation (of the landing and orbital modules) all our parameters we must control disappeared," Pavel Vinogradov told reporters in Moscow after returning there from the landing site in Kazakhstan Wednesday.    More
(Source: UPI - Sep 15)

BOULDER-BUILT SATELLITE READY FOR TAKEOFF - A small beach ball-sized satellite designed and built by a team of University of Colorado Boulder students to better understand how atmospheric drag can affect satellite orbits is now slated for launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Sunday. The satellite, known as the Drag and Atmospheric Neutral Density Explorer satellite, or DANDE, is designed to investigate how a layer of Earth’s atmosphere known as the thermosphere varies in density at altitudes from about 200 to 300 miles above Earth.   More
(Source: Boulder iJournal - Sep 15)

SPACE LAUNCHES HAPPENING IN THE COMING WEEK - It appears like it’s going to be a busy few days for the private space industry, as both SpaceX and Orbital Sciences will be launching spacecrafts in the coming week. SpaceX, which has made a demo flight and two cargo flights to the International Space Station, will be launching a new, stretched version of the Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with a Canadian spacecraft on board. But it’s a test flight, and it will be the first time that they are launching the rocket from a place other than Florida’s Cape Canaveral.   More
(Source: Mobile Magazine - Sep 14)

VA SHORE: ROCKET TO SPACE STATION SET TO LAUNCH TUESDAY FROM WALLOPS - ttention is turning to the scheduled Sept. 17 launch from Wallops Island of an Orbital Sciences Corporation’s Antares rocket carrying the Cygnus spacecraft on a mission to the the International Space Station. It will be the first mission to lift off from Virginia for the International Space Station—and the second major mission launched in less than two weeks from NASA Wallops Flight Facility and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. The LADEE spacecraft is on its way to the moon after successfully lifting off from the spaceport aboard a Minotaur V rocket on Sept. 6.   More
(Source: Delmarva Now - Sep 12)

IRIDIUM UNVEILS NEW STAND-ALONE SATELLITES FOR HOSTED PAYLOADS - Iridium Communications on Monday unveiled a new satellite concept aimed at helping governments and others put sensors and other payloads into space at half the cost of current programs. The satellite operator said there was so much demand to put sensors on its next-generation communications Iridium NEXT satellites it will begin launching in 2015, that it decided to offer a new service to host third-party payloads on stand-alone satellites that would still be able to use the ground control and communications systems of the Iridium NEXT network.   More
(Source: Reuters - Sep 10)

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW: ISS PREPARES FOR CREW EXCHANGE - NASA has reported that the International Space Station (ISS) is about to undergo a crew exchange as three Expedition 36 crew members prepare to return to Earth. Commander Pavel Vinogradov and Flight Engineers Chris Cassidy and Alexander Misurkin will be boarding inside a Soyuz TMA-08M Tuesday night. Vinogradov will be handing over control of the station to Flight Engineer Fyodor Yurchikhin on Monday during a traditional Change of Command Ceremony.    More
(Source: Red Orbit - Sep 10)

NASA ROCKET LIFTS OFF FROM WALLOPS ISLAND, VA., FACILITY ON WAY TO MOON ORBIT - A spacecraft was launched late Friday night from Virginia to the moon, a first in the history of space exploration for the state. The launch from Wallops Island occurred on schedule around 11.27 p.m. and was expected to be visible by millions of people up and down the East Coast. Officials from NASA said they thought it would be able to be viewed in the Washington metropolitan area, as it made a bright arc across the southeastern sky.   More
(Source: The Washington Post - Sep 7)

LONG MARCH 4C LAUNCHES THREE YAOGAN WEIXING-17 SATELLITES - nother super-secretive launch took place on Sunday from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center as China orbited three satellites under the Yaogan Weixing-17 mission. Launch took place at 19:16 UTC from the 603 launch pad of the LC43 launch complex using a Long March-4C (Chang Zheng-4C) launch vehicle. This is the Yaogan Weixing-17 mission composed of three satellites. Chinese media refer the new satellite as a new remote sensing bird that will be used for scientific experiments, land survey, crop yield assessment, and disaster monitoring.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Sep 3)

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