EUROPE'S 'DISCOVERY MACHINE' SOARS TO MAP THE MILKY WAY - The sharp-sighted Gaia observatory, carrying the largest camera ever flown in space, rocketed into a predawn sky from French Guiana on Thursday to survey a billion stars and reveal the structure of the Milky Way in finer detail than any mission before. The ambitious European project, in the works since the early 1990s, promises to collar countless cosmic wonders, ranging from intrinsically bright distant quasars and exploding stars to comparatively dim alien planets, brown dwarf stars and asteroids closer to home. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 19)
BRAZIL, CHINA TO MAKE NEW SATELLITE LAUNCH IN 2014 - Brazil and China will launch a new joint environmental monitoring satellite next year to replace one which failed to enter orbit earlier this month, Communications Minister Paulo Bernardo said Tuesday. "What happened was a tragedy...But there is another satellite already built and ready. It was in the budget for the project, planned for launch in 2015," Bernardo said. More (Source: Phys.Org - Dec 19)
SPACE STATION RESUPPLY LAUNCH SET FOR THURSDAY - NASA says it's working towards enabling a launch on Thursday of a rocket carrying supplies for the International Space Station. Engineers are still trying to fix a problem with the space station's cooling system before that launch can go ahead. Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus spacecraft is set to launch from Wallops field in Virginia at 9:19pm Thursday. The spacecraft was initially scheduled to lift off Wednesday, but the launch was pushed back to allow engineers more time to fix the cooling loop on the space station. More (Source: WMFE - Dec 18)
CARGO FLIGHT DELAYED AMID COOLANT VALVE TROUBLESHOOTING - NASA managers Saturday decided to delay launch of an Orbital Sciences Corp. space station cargo ship by at least one day amid ongoing work to come up with a fix for a balky valve in a cooling system that has forced the station crew to power down non-critical systems. NASA managers Saturday decided to delay launch of an Orbital Sciences Corp. space station cargo ship by at least one day amid ongoing work to come up with a fix for a balky valve in a cooling system that has forced the station crew to power down non-critical systems. More (Source: Spaceflight Now - Dec 15)
FALLING SATELLITE CARRIER EXPECTED TO LAND IN SEA OFF PHANG NGA - Boats and aircraft passing through the Andaman Sea region have been warned to watch out for parts of a satellite-launch vehicle falling to earth, the Geo-Informatics and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA) said yesterday. The agency announced that at least one part of GSLV-D5-II, India's Geosynchronous Satellite-Launch Vehicle, could fall very close to Thailand, because it will pass over Phang Nga, Surat Thani, Krabi, Phuket, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Trang and Phatthalung, during the launch of India's communications satellite GSAT-14, between December 15 and January 14. More (Source: The Nation - Dec 14)
SPACE STATION'S COOLANT PROBLEM CASTS A CLOUD OVER CARGO CRAFT'S LAUNCH - NASA managers say they're still troubleshooting a problem with a coolant pump aboard the International Space Station — and although the crew is not in any danger, a commercial cargo flight might have to be postponed. A decision on the Dec. 18 launch of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Cygnus cargo ship atop an Antares rocket will be deferred until Monday, said Kenny Todd, NASA's space station mission integration and operations manager. More (Source: NBC News - Dec 14)
JOINT FRENCH-ITALIAN MILITARY SATELLITE ARRIVED AT LAUNCH BASE IN FRENCH GUIANA - The Athena-Fidus broadband telecommunications satellite, a joint French-Italian program, arrived at the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana on Dec. 9. Arianespace will carry out the launch using an Ariane 5 ECA launcher on Jan. 23 2013. The Athena-Fidus program (Access on theatres for European allied forces nations-French Italian dual use satellite) includes a geostationary satellite... More (Source: Satellite Today - Dec 13)
OVER-BUDGET ICESAT 2 MISSION UNDER REVIEW - NASA has notified Congress of an expected budget breach on the ICESat 2 mission, a satellite mired in technical difficulties with its ice-measuring laser altimeter and plagued by rising costs and launch delays. Officials disclosed their concerns with ICESat 2's budget in a presentation to the National Advisory Council's science committee on Dec. 3. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Dec 11)
CHINA-BRAZIL SATELLITE FAILS TO ENTER ORBIT - A joint Chinese-Brazilian environmental monitoring satellite launched Monday from northern China failed to enter orbit, state media and experts said, in a rare setback for the country's ambitious space programme. The satellite, meant to be a key tool in Brazil's efforts to control Amazon rainforest deforestation and to monitor its huge agribusiness sector, blasted off from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in Shanxi province on a Long March 4B rocket at 11:26am (0326 GMT), Xinhua said. More (Source: Phys.Org - Dec 11)
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