ARISSAT-1 ON THE AIR FOR GAGARIN ANNIVERSARY - To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first human spaceflight by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the ARISSat-1 satellite aboard the International Space Station will be on the air using the station’s external antenna. Transmissions will begin on Monday, April 11, at 14:30 UTC and continue until 10:30 UTC on April 13. To preserve the satellite’s battery, transmissions will cycle on and off. ARISSat-1 will transmit for 40 to 60 seconds, and then remain silent for 2 minutes. The FM transmissions on 145.950 MHz will alternate between a voice ID, telemetry values, SSTV images and audio greetings in 15 different languages. One of the transmissions will contain audio of a conversation between Gagarin and ground controllers that was recorded during the historic flight.    More
(Source: ARRL - Apr 11)

ISRO TO LAUNCH THREE SATELLITES ON APRIL 20 - ISRO today announced that it will launch three satellites, including an advanced remote sensing satellite to study and manage natural resources, on April 20. "Preparations for the launch of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C16) carrying Resourcesat-2 satellite are progressing well at Satish Dhawan Space Centre , Sriharikota. In this mission, PSLV-C16 will launch Resourcesat-2, Youthsat and X-Sat satellites," the space agency said. Built by ISRO, Resourcesat-2 is an advanced remote sensing satellite weighing 1206 kg for facilitating the study and management of natural resources, it said.    More
(Source: Economic Times - Apr 10)

AZERBAIJAN MAY LAUNCH ANOTHER ARTIFICIAL SATELLITE - Azerbaijan may launch another artificial satellite into space in coming years, deputy director of the Ministry Defense Industry' National Aerospace Agency head Tofig Suleymanov told Trend. A program on a remote sensing satellite has already been developed and submitted to the state, he added. "Unlike the Communications and IT Ministry's satellite, this startup aims to study the Earth's interior.    More
(Source: TMC Net - Apr 10)

CHINA LAUNCHES 8TH NAVIGATION SATELLITE - China has successfully launched its eighth navigation satellite into orbit as part of a project to develop its own global satellite navigation system, official news agency Xinhua reported on Sunday. A Long March-3A carrier rocket carrying the Beidou or Compass navigation satellite took off at 4.47 a.m. Sunday from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province, the agency said.    More
(Source: RIA Novosti - Apr 10)

NASA: SOYUZ TMA-21 DOCKS WITH ISS - On Thursday, at 07:09 EDT, the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft docked with the ISS, International Space Station. The Expedition 27 members, flight engineers Andrey Borisenko and Ronald Garan and mission commander Alexander Samokutyaev, reached their colleagues Paolo Nespoli, Catherine Coleman and Dmitri Kondratiev, on the orbiting station since December 17.    More
(Source: Avionews - Apr 7)

YURI GAGARIN/SPACE SHUTTLE COLUMBIA SPECIAL EVENT - To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the First Man in Space (Russian pilot Yuri Gagarin who in April 12, 1961, was the first human being to go into space on an 108 minute flight), and the first flight of the Space Shuttle Columbia (Sunday morning on April 12th, 1981, known as mission STS-1, opening what is called the Shuttle era), look for special event station, N4S, to be on the air in remembrance of these two events: One which changed the course of history, and the other helped expand our knowledge of the space sciences and in the construction of the International Space Station (ISS).    More
(Source: Southgate Amateur Radio Club - Apr 7)

NEXT SPACE STATION CREW SOARS INTO ORBIT ATOP SOYUZ - A Russian Soyuz spacecraft carrying two rookie cosmonauts and a NASA shuttle veteran blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Monday evening (U.S. time), streaking into orbit and setting off after the International Space Station. Mounted on the same launch pad used by Yuri Gagarin to become the first human in space 50 years ago April 12, the Soyuz TMA-21 spacecraft roared to life at 6:18:20 p.m. EDT (GMT-4), the moment Earth's rotation carried the pad into the plane of the space station's orbit (4:18:20 a.m. April 5 local time). Belching brilliant jets of flame from its liquid-fueled strap-on boosters, the Soyuz rocket climbed away through a clear pre-dawn sky, putting on a spectacular show for Russian and U.S. space managers, family members, engineers and a throng of well wishers    More
(Source: Space Flight Now - Apr 6)

GOCE GRAVITY SATELLITE HAS PLENTY OF FUEL TO KEEP FLYING - Europe's GOCE satellite is collecting exquisite data on Earth's uneven gravity field and has enough xenon fuel to maintain its low-altitude orbit for continued operations through 2013, according to the mission's project manager. The European Space Agency released last week a sneak peek of Earth's gravity field in a lumpy spherical representation called a geoid, a three-dimensional map of the planet's surface and oceans if tides and currents did not exist.    More
(Source: Space Flight Now - Apr 5)

STATION FIRES ENGINES TO AVOID ORBITAL DEBRIS - At 10:36 p.m. EDT, ground controllers moved the International Space Station away from a piece of orbital debris. The object is a relic from a collision between the COSMOS 2251 and Iridium 33 satellites in February 2009 and had been close to the station's orbit prior to the debris avoidance maneuver (DAM). The DAM, performed during the Expedition 27 crew sleep period, used thrusters from three spacecraft, the European Space Agency's Johannes Kepler Automated Transfer Vehicle 2 (ATV2), the Zvezda service module and Progress 41P.    More
(Source: Space-travel.com - Apr 4)

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