KSC WORKERS POSE FOR UNIQUE PORTRAIT - Thousands of Kennedy Space Center employees stand side-by-side to form a full-scale outline of a space shuttle orbiter outside the Vehicle Assembly Building. The unique photo opportunity was designed to honor the space shuttle program's 30-year legacy and the people who contribute to processing, launching and landing the vehicle. More (Source: Space Flight Now - Mar 19)
HAMS INVITED TO TRACK SATELLITES - In November 2010, five research satellites were carried to orbit aboard a Minotaur V rocket from Kodiak Island, Alaska. Two of these satellites -- FASTRAC 1, known as “Sara Lily” and FASTRAC 2, referred to as “Emma” -- entered orbit as a single nanosatellite, but on March 15, scientists sent the command to have them separate. According to FASTRAC Student Program Manager Sebastian Munoz, KE5FKV, students at the University of Texas will be confirming the separation as the satellites pass: “We started one of the most exciting phases of our project by separating both of our girls so that they can compute on-orbit real-time relative navigation solutions while both of them are freely drifting from one another.” More (Source: ARRL - Mar 17)
RUSSIAN SOYUZ TMA-01M IN NOMINAL RETURN TO EARTH - Expedition 26 commander Scott Kelly, along with Russian flight engineers Oleg Skripochka and Alexander Kaleri, have returned to Earth, following a nominal re-entry of their Russian Soyuz TMA-01M spacecraft. The trio landed in horrendous weather conditions in Kazakhstan, resulting in a speedy evacuation by helicopter. The Soyuz Vehicle consists of three modules: the Orbital Module, the Descent Module (DM), and the Instrumentation/Propulsion Module (IPM). All three modules nominally separate simultaneously, shortly after the deorbit burn is completed – at around 140 km altitude. More (Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Mar 17)
SPACEX WINS AN SES SATELLITE LAUNCH - Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) will launch the SES-8 medium-sized communications satellite on a Falcon 9 vehicle in 2013, under the startup launch service provider’s first geostationary communications satellite launch contract. “After extensive due diligence of SpaceX’s technical and operational expertise, we feel comfortable entrusting SpaceX with one of our satellites, thereby encouraging diversity in the launch vehicle sector and fostering entrepreneurial spirit in the space industry,” said Romain Bausch, president and CEO of SES, who has encouraged more launch capability to hold down costs. More (Source: Aviation Week - Mar 17)
SOYUZ TMA-01M SPACE SHUTTLE WILL RETURN TO EARTH ON WEDNESDAY - NASA has unveiled that today, Monday, March 14th, Scott J. Kelly will leave the command of the ISS, International Space Station, to the flight engineer Dmitry Kondratyev. The commander of the 26th Expedition will return to Earth the day after tomorrow, Wednesday, March 16th, on the spacecraft Soyuz TMA-01M; with him will fly the flight engineers Alexander Kaleri and Oleg Skripochka. With their departure, the Expedition 27 starts. More (Source: AVIONEWS - Mar 16)
GOOGLE RELEASES STUNNING BEFORE AND AFTER SATELLITE IMAGERY OF JAPAN - Japan is faced with its worst natural disaster in nearly 100 years following the devastation caused by a magnitude 8.9 earthquake on Friday and the tsunami that inundated hundreds of miles of coastline. Imagery from the ground is heart wrenching and now Google has released satellite imagery showing the hardest hit areas before and after the catastrophe as seen from space. More (Source: Examiner.com - Mar 15)
RUSSIA DELAYS LAUNCH OF SOYUZ TO SPACE STATION - Russia's Federal Space Agency has delayed the launch of its next Soyuz space capsule bound for the International Space Station after detecting a failure in one of the spaceship's systems. The Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft was slated to blast off on March 29 (EDT), but now must wait until the faulty part has been fixed, Russian space officials said today (March 14). "Taking into account the necessity to run additional analysis of the glitch, Soyuz TMA-21 launch is postponed," officials with the Federal Space Agency (known as Roscosmos in Russian) said in a statement. More (Source: MSNBC - Mar 15)
RUSSIAN SATELLITE LOSES LINK WITH GROUND CONTROL - A Russian military satellite lost its communications link with the ground control centre, after it reportedly ran out of fuel, a media report said. The geostationary military satellite Raduga-1 might have run out of fuel and is not controlled by the flight control centre, Xinhua reported citing Interfax news agency. The Russian satellite became uncontrollable in space recently and came within three kilometres of a South Korean satellite. More (Source: Sify - Mar 12)
SHHH: U.S. SPY SATELLITE BLASTS INTO SPACE - An unmanned Delta 4 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on Friday carrying a spy satellite. And that's about all that the general public really knows at this point. The rocket launch, which had briefly been delayed because of high winds, is hauling along a satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office. So what's going up there? Cue Hollywood and let your imaginations roam. For the record, the Air Force Space Command put out a terse comment under the byline of Col. James Ross of the 45th Space Wing vice commander. He explained that the mission "helps ensure that crucial NRO resources will continue to strengthen our national defense." More (Source: CBS News - Mar 12)
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