SPACE STATION’S ORBIT TO BE RAISED AHEAD OF CREW ARRIVAL - The orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) will be raised on Sunday by nearly one kilometer to ensure safe docking of a Russian spacecraft with new crew members, a spokesman for the Russian space agency said. Russia’s mission control center will adjust the ISS orbit by switching on thrusters of Europe’s Europe’s ATV-4 “Albert Einstein” resupply spacecraft currently docked with the station.   More
(Source: RIA Novosti - Sep 16)

INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION CARGO SHIP DEMO LAUNCH FROM VA POSTPONED BY AT LEAST 24 HOURS - The planned launch of a ship from Virginia to the International Space Station is being postponed by at least 24 hours. Dulles-based Orbital Sciences Corp. says that poor weather delayed Friday’s roll-out of its Antares rocket and Cygnus spacecraft. A technical issue also was identified during a systems test.   More
(Source: The Washington Post - Sep 16)

JAPAN LAUNCHES LEANER SPACE PROGRAM - Japan launched the first of its new-generation rocket Epsilon on Saturday, in a project aimed at bringing space satellites closer to everyday lives. The new solid-fuel rocket flew into the sky at 2 p.m. local time (1 a.m. ET) with a roaring sound, emitting an orange flame and white smoke. Designed to deliver smaller satellites more cheaply into space, the first Epsilon successfully carried a planet observation satellite, Sprint-A, into planned orbit.   More
(Source: Wall Street Journal - Sep 16)

U OF C'S CASSIOPE SATELLITE LAUNCH DELAYED - The launch of a Canadian satellite the University of Calgary had a hand in developing has been postponed. Cassiope, or the Cascade SmallSat and Ionospheric Polar Explorer, was scheduled to be launched from California aboard a rocket but a test Friday showed the satellite wasn't quite ready to go. The satellite's mission has been developed by the Canadian Space Agency together with several research organizations and 10 Canadian universities.   More
(Source: CBC.ca - Sep 16)

BANGABANDHU 1 SATELLITE PROJECT READY - The Tk32.48bn Development Project Proposal (DPP) for Bangabandhu 1, the first satellite of Bangladesh, is ready for being placed before the highest economic policymaking body of the country. The proposal is likely to be tabled at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) very soon.   More
(Source: DhakaTribune - Sep 16)

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)

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