OLYMPIC TORCH RELAY HEADS TO INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - While the Olympic torch relay courses through Russia ahead of the 2014 Sochi Winter Games in February, a veteran international crew from Russia, the United States and Japan will launch into space next week with an unlit replica for a ceremonial orbital handoff. Russia is sending the torch to the International Space Station as officials gear up for the Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. The opening ceremony is set for Feb. 7.    More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Nov 1)

LAUNCH OF EUROPEAN SATELLITE TRIO DELAYED BY TECHNICAL PROBLEMS - mission using three satellites to investigate the mysteries of Earth's magnetic field has been delayed, the European Space Agency said Wednesday. Originally scheduled for Nov. 14, the launch of the Swarm mission is expected to be delayed by about one week, the mission's launch service provider, Eurockot, said. The delay follows a decision to replace a part in the upper stage of the Rockot launcher, ESA officials said. The three-satellite Swarm mission is intended to study the magnetic field that protects the planet from cosmic radiation and charged particles that bombard Earth in "solar winds," ESA scientists said.    More
(Source: UPI - Oct 31)

CHINA LAUNCHES REMOTE SENSING SATELLITE - China launched a remote sensing satellite from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in China's Shanxi province on Tuesday , according to the centre. The Yaogan XVIII remote-sensing satellite was successfully launched at 10.50 a.m. on the back of a Long March 2C carrier rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in China's Shanxi province, Xinhua reported citing a press release of the centre as saying.   More
(Source: IANS - Oct 30)

EUROPEAN CARGO FREIGHTER UNDOCKS FROM SPACE STATION - Europe's fourth Automated Transfer Vehicle backed away from the International Space Station on Monday, firing thrusters to vacate the outpost's safety bubble and begin positioning itself for a destructive re-entry Saturday. Filled with trash and liquid waste, the ATV undocked from the space station's Russian Zvezda service module at 0855 GMT (4:55 a.m. EDT) as the complex flew 260 miles over Kazakhstan. The spaceship's Russian docking system pushed the vehicles apart, then the ATV's rocket jets fired to accelerate its rate of departure, exiting the space station's "keep-out sphere" a few minutes after undocking.    More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 29)

RUSSIA'S FIRST PRIVATE SPACE SATELLITE SET FOR LAUNCH - The first private Russian space satellite is set to launch in February and will leverage commonly used "cloud computing" and mobile phone technology to generate potentially huge profits for its investors, The Wall Street Journal reported. "In 2015 we are anticipating a certain percentage of revenue coming from the cloud platform," Ilya Golubovich, a venture capitalist whose firm has invested $20 million in the satellite's manufacturer Dauria, told The Wall Street Journal.   More
(Source: Space Daily - Oct 28)

IT'S RAINING SATELLITE: EUROPE'S GRAVITY FIELD EXPLORER TO FALL BACK TO EARTH IN TWO WEEKS - A one-ton European Space Agency satellite, which for four years has being mapping the Earth's gravity, has run out of fuel and will reenter the atmosphere in two weeks. While its descent is constantly monitored, the impact location is still unknown. The ESA's Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE), which was launched from Russia in March 2009, managed to spend 2 1/2 more years on its mission than was initially expected. During these extra years of work, it was taken to the lowest altitude orbit of any research satellite to capture the gravity data of unequalled accuracy.   More
(Source: Space Daily - Oct 28)

WORLD EUROPE'S ATV-4 SPACE FREIGHTER TO UNDOCK FROM ISS - Europe's ATV-4 space freighter will undock from the International Space Station ('SS) on Monday and will enter the Earth's atmosphere five days later, the European Space Agency (ESA) said. The space freighter, which carried a record amount of cargo among all ATV (Automated Transfer Vehicle) spacecraft and became the heaviest ever payload carried by an Ariane rocket, will set another record on Monday. It will take the largest ever amount of waste from the orbital station. A series of maneuvers will be carried out in the next five days to position the spacecraft exactly 120 kilometers (74.5 miles) below the station. The reentry procedure is slated to begin around noon GMT on November 2.   More
(Source: RIA Novosti - Oct 28)

PROTON-M LAUNCHES WITH SIRIUS FM-6 SATELLITE - International Launch Services (ILS) have conducted another launch of the Russian Proton-M launch vehicle, this time carrying the Sirius FM-6 satellite on a multi-hour flight to its transfer orbit. Launch from the from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan was on time at 18:08 GMT, the second flight of the Proton since its dramatic failure earlier in the year. Proton-M: The Proton booster launching the Sirius FM-6 satellite is 4.1 m (13.5 ft) in diameter along its second and third stages, with a first stage diameter of 7.4 m (24.3 ft). Overall height of the three stages of the Proton booster is 42.3 m (138.8 ft).   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Oct 26)

SPACE TRASH IS A BIG PROBLEM. THESE ECONOMISTS HAVE A SOLUTION. - Space is getting messy. The amount of debris in Earth's orbit keeps growing each year, disrupting satellites and occasionally putting astronauts in harm's way. If the problem gets severe enough, it could eventually make low-earth orbit unusable. Scientists have been worrying about space trash since the 1970s.   More
(Source: Washington Post - Oct 25)

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