THE SATELLITE COLLISION THAT NEVER HAPPENED? - What has been reported by mainstream press to have been a satellite collision in late January, which allegedly damaged a Russian satellite, never took place, according to a U.S. defense official. Major news outlets reported last week that the Russian BLITS satellite collided with a piece of orbital debris left after China conducted an antisatellite test using its own Feng Yun 1C satellite as a target in 2007. They quote experts at the Center for Space Standards & Innovation, who say the collision occurred Jan. 22. More (Source: Aviation Week - Mar 19)
INDIA GEARS UP TO LAUNCH FIRST NAVIGATIONAL SATELLITE - India plans to launch its first navigational satellite in June, a top official of the Department of Space (DoS) said today. The first Satellite of Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) constellation, IRNSS-1 will be launched by PSLV-C22, said DoS Secretary and Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) K Radhakrishnan. According to ISRO officials, IRNSS is an independent regional navigation satellite system, designed to provide position accuracy of better than 10 metres over India and the region extending about 1500 km around the country. More (Source: Indiatimes.com - Mar 18)
SWISS COMPANY AIMS TO FLY SATELLITES INTO SPACE - If you want to launch a satellite in the usual way – on top of a rocket – it will typically cost you at least US$50,000,000. Newly-inaugurated aerospace firm Swiss Space Systems (S3), however, claims that it will be able to put your small satellite into orbit for about 10.6 million bucks. Why so cheap? S3 is planning on flying satellites into space, using an airliner and an unmanned shuttle. More (Source: Gizmag - Mar 17)
3 ASTRONAUTS RETURN TO EARTH FROM SPACE STATION - A Soyuz space capsule carrying an American astronaut and two Russian cosmonauts landed Saturday morning on the steppes of Kazakhstan, safely returning the three men to Earth after a 144-day mission to the International Space Station. NASA's Kevin Ford and Russians Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin had been scheduled to return on Friday, but the landing was postponed by a day because of bad weather. Live footage on NASA TV showed all three men smiling as they were helped out of the capsule and into reclining chairs to begin their acclimatization to Earth's gravity. More (Source: USA TODAY - Mar 17)
BAD WEATHER IN KAZAKHSTAN DELAYS RETURN OF 3 SPACE STATION ASTRONAUTS FOR AT LEAST 1 DAY - Bad weather is delaying the return of three astronauts from the International Space Station. The astronauts were scheduled to land in a Soyuz capsule in central Kazakhstan early Friday morning. But fog and freezing rain prevented Russian rescue helicopters from flying to the touchdown site. NASA's Kevin Ford and Russians Oleg Novitsky and Yevgeny Tarelkin will stay at the space station for at least another day. They've been in space for nearly five months. More (Source: Fox News - Mar 15)
SWISS SPACE SYSTEMS UNVEILS SMALL REUSABLE SATELLITE LAUNCH SYSTEM - Swiss Space Systems (S-3), based in Payerne in the Alpine country, has released plans for a reusable small satellite launch system, with test flights scheduled to begin in 2017. S-3's plan entails air-launching a reusable lifting body-like vehicle from the top of an Airbus A300, which will, in turn, release a disposable third stage. Though crucial details were not immediately available, the launch system is closely based on Dassault's airborne reusable hypersonic vehicle (VEHRA) concept, which the company has been proposing for several years without any takers. Dassault is one of six industrial partners in the project. More (Source: Flightglobal - Mar 15)
RUSSIAN SATELLITE HIT BY DEBRIS FROM CHINESE ANTI-SATELLITE TEST - A small Russian spacecraft in orbit appears to have been struck by Chinese space junk from a 2007 anti-satellite test, likely damaging the Russian craft, possibly severely, SPACE.com has learned. The space collision appears to have occurred on Jan. 22, when a chunk of China's Fengyun 1C satellite, which was intentionally destroyed by that country in a 2007 anti-satellite demonstration, struck the Russian spacecraft, according to an analysis by the Center for Space Standards & Innovation (CSSI) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. More (Source: Space.com - Mar 9)
ISRO PLANS A NEW HIGH-RESOLUTION EARTH SATELLITE - The Indian Space Research Organisation is to build a remote sensing satellite, Cartosat-3, capable of taking images of the earth with a resolution of 0.25 metres. Currently, GeoEye-1 produces the highest resolution earth images taken by a commercial satellite. The American spacecraft, launched in September 2008, is capable of taking panchromatic images with 0.41 metre resolution. WorldView-2, another satellite operated by the same company, DigitalGlobe, offers a best resolution of 0.46 metres. However, in accordance with U.S. regulations, commercially released images from these satellites are degraded to 0.5 metre resolution. More (Source: The Hindu - Mar 8)
US-RUSSIAN CREW LAUNCHING TO SPACE STATION IN RECORD TIME - The next crew to launch toward the International Space Station will make the trip faster than any astronauts before them, thanks to a new docking plan being tested this month. NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian cosmonauts Pavel Vinogradov and Alexander Misurkin are set to launch to the space station March 28 at 4:43 p.m. EDT (2043 GMT) aboard a Russian Soyuz capsule. While it normally takes Soyuz vehicles two days to reach the orbiting laboratory after launch, Cassidy, Vinogradov and Misurkin will make the trip in just six hours. More (Source: Space.com - Mar 7)
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