PROTOTYPE PASSENGER SPACESHIP POISED FOR LAUNCH - A prototype passenger spaceship developed by privately owned Space Exploration Technologies arrived in Florida on Sunday for launch on a practice cargo run to the International Space Station, officials said on Monday. Liftoff of the Dragon capsule aboard the company's Falcon 9 rocket is targeted for as early as December 19, although the final launch date will be set by NASA, which is sponsoring the flight, said Bobby Block, vice president for communications for Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX. More (Source: Reuters - Oct 25)
SCIENTISTS TRY TO DETERMINE FATE OF GERMAN SATELLITE THAT RETURNED TO EARTH - Scientists were trying to establish how and where a defunct German research satellite returned to the Earth Sunday, after warning that some parts might survive re-entry and crash at up to 280 mph (450 kph). There was no immediate solid evidence to determine above which continent or country the ROSAT scientific research satellite entered the atmosphere, said Andreas Schuetz, spokesman for the German Aerospace Center. More (Source: Washington Post - Oct 23)
THE FALLING GERMAN SATELLITE ROSAT: BIGGEST QUESTIONS & ANSWERS - Less than a month after a dead NASA satellite came crashing to Earth, the sky is falling again. The defunct 2.7-ton German ROSAT satellite is slated to make a fiery, uncontrolled re-entry to our atmosphere sometime Saturday or Sunday (Oct. 22 or 23). Experts say the broken-up bits of ROSAT have a roughly 1-in-2,000 chance of hitting someone somewhere on Earth. That risk, while still quite remote, is higher than the 1-in-3,200 chance posed by NASA's UARS satellite, which fell uneventfully into the Pacific Ocean on Sept. 24. More (Source: Space.com - Oct 22)
RUSSIAN ROCKET PLACES FIRST GALILEO GPS SATELLITES IN ORBIT - A Russian rocket placed in orbit Friday the first two satellites in the Galileo geopositioning system after making its maiden launch from a European space base in French Guiana, mission controllers said. Flight managers applauded loudly as the two satellites were deployed in space, nearly four hours after the veteran Soyuz rocket lifted off from Kourou. "This is the story of Europe, which succeeds and knows how to cooperate," according to Jean-Yves Le Gall, chief executive of Arianespace. "What a road we have traveled." More (Source: Fox News - Oct 21)
STATION RAISES ORBIT FOR VISITORS AS EXPERIMENTS CONTINUE - The International Space Station raised its orbit Wednesday after the Zvezda service module fired its engines for 1 minute, 53 seconds. The reboost puts the station in a good configuration for a second orbital boost on Oct. 26. Both firings will put the station at the proper altitude for the upcoming dockings of the ISS Progress 45 supply ship and the Soyuz TMA-22 spacecraft carrying three new Expedition 29 crew members. More (Source: Space Fellowship - Oct 21)
HISTORIC LAUNCH DELAYED OF RUSSIAN ROCKET CARRYING 2 SATELLITES FOR EUROPE’S GPS SYSTEM - The launch of the first two satellites of the European Union’s Galileo navigation system was postponed Thursday because of technical problems at the base in French Guiana, according to officials. Officials hope to delay the launch of the Russian Soyuz rocket by only 24 hours, although a new date will be announced once the investigation is complete, said Jean-Yves Le Gall, chairman and CEO of Arianespace, the commercial arm of the European Space Agency. Authorities postponed the launch after they discovered a leak inside a valve, he said. More (Source: The Washington Post - Oct 21)
VIASAT-1 HIGH-CAPACITY SATELLITE LAUNCH SUCCESSFUL - ViaSat Inc. has announced that International Launch Services has successfully launched ViaSat-1, the highest capacity satellite in the world. The Proton M launch vehicle lifted off from pad 39 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, at 11:48 am (PDT) October 19, followed by spacecraft separation from the launch vehicle at 9:12 pm, signal acquisition shortly thereafter, and finally deployment of both the north and south solar arrays. ViaSat-1 is designed to transform the economics and quality of service that satellite broadband can provide. More (Source: MarketWatch - Oct 21)
FALLING GERMAN SATELLITE MAY CRASH INTO EARTH THIS WEEKEND - Pieces of a retired German satellite hurtling toward the atmosphere may crash to earth this weekend, the German Aerospace Center said Thursday. Scientists have now honed their initial estimate of when the satellite would hit from a span of four days to either Saturday or Sunday. As it nears, they will eventually be able to estimate impact within a window of about 10 hours. Parts of the satellite, which is the size of a minivan, will burn up during re-entry but up to 30 fragments weighing a total of 1.87 tons (1.7 metric tons) could crash into the Earth with a speed of up to 280 mph (450 kph). More (Source: The Washington Post - Oct 21)
ORBCOMM ANNOUNCES SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH OF AIS-ENABLED SATELLITE - ORBCOMM Inc., a global satellite data communications company focused on two-way Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications, today announced the successful launch of VesselSat1, an Automatic Identification Service (AIS) enabled satellite built by LuxSpace Sarl (LuxSpace), an affiliate of OHB System AG. VesselSat1 launched from the Indian Space Research Organization's (ISRO) launch pad at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh near the Bay of the Bengal at 1:30 AM EDT. The satellite has been successfully separated from the PSLV launch vehicle in a proper equatorial orbit. More (Source: Space Ref - Oct 16)
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