IS ANOTHER DISABLED SATELLITE HEADED FOR EARTH? - On the heels of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite’s (UARS) splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, Telegraph reporter Andy Bloxham warned over the weekend that a second satellite is headed for Earth and should re-enter our planet’s atmosphere sometime next month. The craft in question is the Röntgensatellit (aka the ROSAT), a 2.4-ton space telescope that was originally constructed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and was disabled after its guidance system failed in 1999.    More
(Source: RedOrbit - Sep 28)

MINOTAUR 4 ROCKET BLAZES FIERY TRAIL INTO SPACE - A Minotaur rocket derived from decommissioned nuclear missile parts blasted off at 1549 GMT (11:49 a.m. EDT; 7:49 a.m. Alaska time) today from the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska. The launch is carrying a U.S. Navy communications satellite to aid troops deployed in battle zones like Afghanistan and Iraq.    More
(Source: Space Flight Now - Sep 28)

SATELLITE LIKELY FELL IN PACIFIC; 'WE MAY NEVER KNOW' - Where in the world is NASA's crashed satellite? On the ocean floor most likely, what's left of it, but nobody seems to know for sure. The best bet is that the fiery breakup of NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS), designed to study atmospheric chemistry, scattered debris across a 500-mile swath of the Pacific Ocean. Coming decades after the nuclear era led to U.S. missile-warning radars being placed around the globe, the question remains: Why it wasn't possible to pinpoint the exact areas where pieces of the NASA satellite fell to Earth?    More
(Source: USA Today - Sep 28)

CHINA WILL LAUNCH A PROTOTYPE OF ITS SPACE STATION LATER THIS WEEK - China rallied hard to become a part of the US-led, international partnership that owns and operates the International Space Station, but was ultimately turned down. Not one to be left out, China decided to go ahead and build its own manned space station — and later this week, the country will take a major step toward seeing this project become reality. The country's Tiangong 1, or "Heavenly Palace," which we talked about in our Fall Science preview, is scheduled for liftoff on either the 29th or 30th of this month.    More
(Source: io9 - Sep 27)

LESSON OF A FALLING SATELLITE - Did you hear about the 6-ton NASA satellite expected to fall to on Earth on Friday? Don't panic, Chicken Little! All kinds of space debris -- both man-made and natural -- falls harmlessly to Earth each year, and like those bits and pieces, the debris of this satellite will probably fall into the oceans or onto uninhabited land. NASA puts the odds you will be hit by debris at 21 trillion to one. Still, this event is an example of the technical challenges humans continually face.    More
(Source: CNN - Sep 25)

SEA LAUNCH CONDUCTS FIRST SATELLITE LAUNCH SINCE BANKRUPTCY REORGANIZATION LAST YEAR - A European communications satellite was boosted into orbit Saturday by a rocket that blasted off from Sea Launch AG’s floating pad in the equatorial Pacific, marking the first mission since the company’s emergence from bankruptcy protection last year. The Zenit 3-SL rocket had no problems as it rose into space with the Atlantic Bird 7 satellite, according to a company webcast. The satellite will serve Eutelsat Communications’s broadcasting markets across the Middle East, North Africa and northwest Africa.    More
(Source: Washington Post - Sep 25)

ARIANE 5 ROCKET LIGHTS UP JUNGLE WITH PERFECT LAUNCH - Generating an exhilarating wave of sound and light spreading miles around, an Ariane 5 rocket rose into space at sunset Wednesday with a communications satellite for the Middle East and another craft to serve commercial and U.S. government customers over North America. Grounded for a day by a labor dispute at the launch base, the Ariane 5 rocket ignited its clean-burning hydrogen-fueled Vulcain 2 main engine at 2138 GMT (5:38 p.m. EDT), waited seven seconds for a computer-run health check, then fired two cylindrical solid rocket boosters and climbed away from the Guiana Space Center.    More
(Source: Space Flight Now - Sep 24)

JAPAN LAUNCHES NEW SPY SATELLITE - The Japanese H-2A rocket carrying a new information-gathering optical satellite lifted off at 1:36 pm (0436 GMT) from the Tanegashima Space Center in southwestern Japan. "The rocket was launched successfully and the satellite was separated into an orbit around the earth later," Naoki Takarada, an official of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), said by telephone from Tanegashima. The new satellite, equipped with optical sensors, can distinguish objects on the ground with a resolution of some 60 centimetres (24 inches) from an altitude of around 500 kilometres (310 miles), according to media reports.    More
(Source: PhysOrg.com - Sep 24)

NASA SAYS SATELLITE FELL TO EARTH OVER PACIFIC OCEAN - NASA's dead six-ton satellite fell to Earth early Saturday morning, starting its fiery death plunge somewhere over the vast Pacific Ocean. Details were still sketchy, but the U.S. Air Force's Joint Space Operations Center and NASA say that the bus-sized satellite first penetrated Earth's atmosphere somewhere over the Pacific Ocean. That doesn't necessarily mean it all fell into the sea -- although most of it is believed to have burned up.    More
(Source: Fox News - Sep 24)

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