RUSSIANS UNVEIL SPACE HOTEL - "Getting away from it all" may be a travel marketing cliché, but the phrase might take on a whole new meaning come 2016. Russian firm Orbital Technologies plans to open the first space hotel in history in five year's time. The space hotel, or "Commercial Space Station," as it's officially called, will float 250 miles above Earth. The hotel can accommodate a maximum of seven people at a time. To check in, tourists will have to undergo special training that can take up to three months, depending on the type of spacecraft they fly to the hotel. More (Source: CNN International - Aug 19)
RUSSIA 'LOSES CONTACT' WITH SATELLITE AFTER LAUNCH - Russia has lost contact with a major new telecommunications satellite hours after its launch into orbit, reports said on Thursday. The Express-AM4 satellite was launched in the early hours of Thursday morning from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan and was due to provide digital television, telephone and Internet services across Russia. "The radio systems are not detecting the satellite in its fixed orbit. There are no signals from the satellite," a source in the space industry told the Interfax news agency. More (Source: AFP - Aug 18)
DNEPR ROCKET BOOSTS SEVEN SATELLITES INTO EARTH ORBIT - Seven small satellites to serve organizations on four continents rocketed out of a missile silo in Russia and roared into orbit Wednesday on top of a Dnepr rocket. The international payloads blasted off at 0712 GMT (3:12 a.m. EDT) from a space base near Yasny, Russia, a small community in the Orenburg region in the southern part of the country. The 111-foot-tall Dnepr rocket shot out of an underground silo, ignited its first stage and soared into a sun-synchronous orbit more than 400 miles high. More (Source: Space Flight Now - Aug 18)
POWERFUL COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE LAUNCHED FOR RUSSIA - A powerful European-built satellite to bolster Russia's communications infrastructure launched Wednesday on top of a Proton rocket, starting a nine-hour journey toward a 22,000-mile-high perch above Earth. The Express AM4 spacecraft, built by EADS Astrium, will provide communications coverage over Russia and neighboring countries for the next 15 years. The satellite will be operated by the Russian Satellite Communications Co., the country's state civil satellite operator. More (Source: Space Flight Now - Aug 18)
HAWTHORNE'S SPACEX PLANS SPACE STATION FLIGHT - Rocket company Space Exploration Technologies Corp.'s next flight will come in November on a mission to dock with the International Space Station. The Hawthorne-based company hopes that the scheduled Nov. 30 launch of its Falcon 9 rocket will be followed nine days later by the Dragon space capsule's berthing with the ISS. "This next mission represents a huge milestone not only for SpaceX, but also for NASA and the U.S. space program," the company better known as SpaceX said in a statement. More (Source: Daily Breeze - Aug 18)
CHINESE MARINE OBSERVATION SATELLITE PLACED IN ORBIT - A Chinese ocean observation satellite launched Monday on a Long March rocket from the Taiyuan space center in northeastern China, according to state-run media. The Haiyang 2A satellite lifted off at 2257 GMT (6:57 p.m. EDT) from the Taiyuan launching base in Shanxi province, the state-owned Xinhua news agency reported. Launch occurred at 6:57 a.m. local time in Beijing. The remote sensing payload flew into orbit on top of a Long March 4B rocket, which placed the satellite in a 565-mile-high orbit with an inclination of 99 degrees, according to independent tracking data. More (Source: Space Flight Now - Aug 17)
CHINA TO LAUNCH MARITIME SATELLITE IN COMING DAYS - China plans to launch a maritime satellite at the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China in the coming days, a statement from the center said Sunday. The orbiter, Haiyang-2, will be boosted by a Long March-4B carrier rocket from the launch center in Shanxi Province at an appropriate launch window, the statement said. The satellite and rocket are in good condition and preparations for the launch are going on smoothly, it said. More (Source: Xinhua - Aug 16)
CHINESE SPACE LAB SET TO SOAR - China looks ready to launch a small space lab into orbit, space policy experts report, perhaps as soon as this month. The 8.5-ton Tiangong I space lab, the next step in China's manned space program, follows three successful launches of Chinese astronauts, or Taikonauts, into orbit in the last decade. More (Source: USA Today - Aug 15)
PAKISTAN’S COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE IN ORBIT - Pakistan’s communications satellite, Paksat-1R, was launched on Thursday by China’s Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in Sichuan province. A press release issued here said Defence Secretary Lt-Gen (retd) Syed Athar Ali, Foreign Affairs Secretary Salman Bashir, Strategic Plans Division’s director-general Lt-Gen (retd) Khalid Ahmed Kidwai and Ambassador to China Masood Khan witnessed the launch. The satellite successfully separated from the carrier rocket and entered geostationary transfer orbit as scheduled, 26 minutes after the launch. More (Source: DAWN.com - Aug 13)
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