SKYCUBE IS A SMALL CROWDFUNDED SATELLITE - Lofting a satellite into orbit used to cost the kind of money that only governments and telecom companies could afford. Tim DeBenedictis says he can do it with crowdfunding and Kickstarter. Next year, his San Francisco company, Southern Stars, plans to launch a tiny satellite financed by equally small donations. More (Source: San Francisco Chronicle - Sep 3)
WHISKY SPACE EXPERIMENT TRIBUTE LAUNCHED - A rocket carrying vials of chemical compounds from Ardbeg's Islay distillery was blasted up to the International Space Station last year to test the effects of near zero gravity on the maturation process. Ardbeg has now released "Ardbeg Galileo" to celebrate the event. The experiment is believed to be the first of its kind. The micro-organic compounds will spend up to two years in space interacting with charred oak in near zero gravity conditions. More (Source: BBC News - Sep 3)
NASA SET TO LAUNCH SATELLITE “SMARTPHONES” - NASA has unfolded a future plan in which it will send compact and cheap satellites in the space using the technology of smartphones. The new plan is called PhoneSat and uses a Nexus S handset specially made for the purpose which runs on Android software. PhoneSat is a plan which will send satellites into the space orbits. More (Source: Wireless HDTV News - Sep 2)
INDONESIA TO LAUNCH MARITIME SATELLITE - Indonesia is set to have more eyes in its skies with the launch of the Lapan A2 satellite to monitor traffic across its vast maritime expanses. The satellite, weighing 78 kilograms, was designed, assembled and tested in-house by the Institute for Aeronautics and Space ( Lapan) and will be the nation's first satellite running in an equatorial orbit that is equipped with an automated remote-sensing system, local media reported on Saturday. More (Source: CRIENGLISH.com - Sep 2)
STUCK BOLT FORCES EXTRA SPACEWALK FOR SPACE STATION CREW - A stubborn bolt that prevented two spacewalking astronauts from properly installing a replacement power unit on the exterior of the International Space Station today (Aug. 31) will now require another spacewalk — possibly as early as next week — to attempt to resolve the problem, NASA officials said. NASA spaceflyer Sunita Williams and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide spent more than eight hours working outside the orbiting complex today... More (Source: Space.com - Sep 1)
ATLAS ROCKET LAUNCHES MISSION 50 YEARS IN THE MAKING - A mission to answer questions as old as the space age launched from Cape Canaveral this morning as two armored satellites were sent into hellish orbits that submerge the craft in Earth's punishing radiation belts. "We have been waiting for this mission for decades. The Van Allen Belts were discovered in 1958 and since that time we know some things about the radiation belts but not enough. This mission is designed to really understand the whole solar interaction with the radiation belts and understand why they are excited (by the sun) and why sometimes they are not," said Richard Fitzgerald, the RBSP project manager. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 31)
SPACEX AND ORBITAL SCHEDULED TO LAUNCH IN OCTOBER - NASA announced this week that SpaceX's first contracted cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station is scheduled for October. The announcement was made by NASA boss Charles Bolden during a visit to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Bolden confirmed SpaceX had completed its Space Act Agreement under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Program and was certified to ship cargo to the space station. More (Source: Sen - Space exploration network - Aug 28)
NASA RADIATION BELT PROBES LAUNCH POSTPONED AFTER STORMY WEATHER - NASA has postponed the liftoff of two space radiation satellites to no earlier than Aug. 30 due to expected stormy fallout from Tropical Storm Isaac, space agency officials said today (Aug. 25). The space agency announced the launch delay just hours after thunderstorms thwarted an attempted early morning launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida today during a 20-minute window that opened at 4:07 a.m. EDT (0807 GMT). More (Source: The Huffington Post - Aug 27)
STORMS SPOIL NASA SATELLITE LAUNCH ATTEMPT - Thunderstorms have ruined NASA's second attempt to launch a pair of science satellites. For the second day in a row, NASA had to halt the countdown for its Radiation Belt Storm Probes. Lightning and thick storm clouds prevented the unmanned rocket from taking off early Saturday from Cape Canaveral. On Friday, a tracking beacon on the rocket held up the flight. NASA says it will try again Sunday. More (Source: CBS News - Aug 26)
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