NASA SAYS MISSION TO SAVE SATELLITE HAS FAILED - A complicated mission to save a NASA satellite from burning up in the atmosphere has failed, the US space agency said Wednesday, August 19, as the rescue spacecraft could not be controlled. The Swift space telescope, which studies the most powerful explosions in the universe, will now likely plunge ... More (Source: Le Monde - Aug 21)
ON 19 AUGUST 2026, SPACEX PUSHED ITS STARLINK CONSTELLATION PAST 11,000 SATELLITES IN ORBIT - At 04:01 UTC on 19 August 2026, a Falcon 9 rose from California carrying 24 more Starlink satellites. About an hour later, their deployment appears to have pushed SpaceX’s broadband constellation through another threshold: more than 11,000 Starlinks circling Earth. The number needs a definition... More (Source: Space Daily - Aug 21)
LAST-MINUTE ABORT STALLS CAPE CANAVERAL STARLINK MISSION - An abort called in the last 30 seconds of its countdown on Thursday halted SpaceX from launching its 75th batch of Starlink satellites of the year. SpaceX didn’t provide a reason for the scrub prior to ending is broadcast. When it launches, Starlink 10-39 mission will add another 29 broadband i... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 21)
TAIWAN-MADE SATELLITE LAUNCHER FAILS FIRST TEST, TRIGGERS MISSILE PANIC - Taiwan’s first test of a locally developed satellite launch vehicle failed on Wednesday after the rocket veered off course, terrifying nearby villagers who mistook it for an incoming missile. The rocket was launched at around 6am local time from the Jiupeng missile testing base in southern Ping... More (Source: South China Morning Post - Aug 20)
LANDSPACE BECOMES FIRST COMMERCIAL CHINESE COMPANY TO LAND AN ORBITAL-CLASS BOOSTER - Chinese commercial launch company, LandSpace cemented its place in the race to rocket reusability as it landed the first stage booster of its ZhuQue-3 (ZQ-3) rocket on Wednesday morning local time. The rocket lifted off from Dongfeng Commercial Space Innovation Pilot Zone in the northwestern part... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 20)
SPACEX LAUNCHES ITS 100TH MISSION OF THE YEAR, SENDS STARLINK SATELLITES TO ORBIT - SpaceX has hit the century mark for the third year in a row. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from California's Vandenberg Space Force Base on Wednesday (Aug. 19) at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT; 9:01 p.m. on Aug. 18 local time). It was the 97th Falcon 9 launch of the year and the 100th mission of 202... More (Source: Space.com - Aug 20)
NASA, ESA ASTRONAUTS WRAP UP STATION SPACEWALK - NASA astronaut Anil Menon and ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Sophie Adenot concluded their spacewalk outside the International Space Station at 2:52 p.m. EDT. During the 6-hour, 23-minute spacewalk, Menon and Adenot completed the removal of a failed Space-to-Ground antenna and performed a ... More (Source: NASA - Aug 19)
IF MILLIONS OF SATELLITES LAUNCH TO SPACE, IS CHAOS THE INEVITABLE OUTCOME? | - Earth’s low-Earth orbit is not an unlimited resource: although tens of thousands of satellites could potentially operate there, increasing satellite density—especially from megaconstellations—raises the risk of collisions, space debris, interference with astronomy, and other environmental impa... More (Source: Scientific American - Aug 19)
BLUE ORIGIN ADDING SECOND PAD TO CAPE CANAVERAL LAUNCH COMPLEX AMID ROCKET EXPLOSION REPAIRS - Blue Origin plans to return its Florida launch site to a dual-pad facility to support its bigger, more powerful New Glenn "9x4" rocket, which is still under development. As facility repairs continue following the explosion of one of Blue Origin's New Glenn "7x2" rockets during tests at Cape Canav... More (Source: Space.com - Aug 18)
SATELLITE OPERATORS ARE IN PANIC MODE DUE TO A WORSENING LAUNCH CRISIS - This should be a golden era of launch. During the last three years, an average of 270 orbital rockets have launched from Earth, a more than threefold increase from only a decade ago. By every metric available, the launch industry is crushing it: Prices have never been more competitive, launches n... More (Source: Ars Technica - Aug 18)
NEW RECORD! SPACEX LAUNCHES 2 FALCON 9 ROCKETS JUST 38 MINUTES APART - SpaceX keeps setting spaceflight records. Elon Musk's company launches far more frequently than any other outfit, and it operates the largest satellite constellation ever assembled — the Starlink broadband network, which consists of nearly 11,000 satellites (and counting). On Saturday evenin... More (Source: Space.com - Aug 17)
SPACEX LAUNCHES RECORD-BREAKING BACK-TO-BACK FALCON 9 ROCKETS FOR GLOBALSTAR, U.S. SPACE FORCE - SpaceX launched back-to-back missions for Globalstar and the U.S. Space Force Saturday night, shrinking its time between launches down to a record 38.5 minutes. First up was a batch of eight satellites for Globalstar as part of its work to replenish its low Earth orbit satellite constellation. Th... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 16)
JAPAN LAUNCHES SOVEREIGN SATELLITE NAVIGATION NETWORK AS GPS CANNOT REACH ALL OF ITS COUNTRY - Mountainous terrain and densely packed city blocks across Japan can obstruct ordinary satellite positioning signals from reaching receivers on the ground. Standard Global Positioning System coverage was never built with those obstacles in mind, leaving gaps in accuracy across parts of the country... More (Source: TechRadar - Aug 15)
SCIENTISTS HOPE TO SHED LIGHT ON YOUNG UNIVERSE BY USING FAR SIDE OF THE MOON - Little is known about what was happening shortly after the big bang, but now researchers are hoping to shed fresh light on the matter by harnessing the far side of the moon. Scientists plan to put a suitcase-sized satellite into orbit around the moon, using the data it collects as it passes the f... More (Source: The Guardian - Aug 15)
ONGOING SPACEWALK PREPS, EMERGENCY TRAINING KEEP CREW BUSY ON WEDNESDAY - Spacewalk preparations are ongoing aboard the International Space Station as two astronauts gear up to replace a high-speed antenna next week. The Expedition 75 crew members also practiced their emergency response skills in coordination with mission controllers on Earth.... More (Source: NASA - Aug 15)
SPACEX WANTS TO PUT 1 MILLION AI SATELLITES IN ORBIT. WHAT WOULD THAT DO TO EARTH'S CLIMATE? - Concentrations of dangerous pollutants from rocket launches and satellite reentries in Earth's upper atmosphere might reach treacherous tipping points if constellations of hundreds of thousands of orbiting data centers get deployed in the next decade, experts say. There's no question that Earth h... More (Source: Space.com - Aug 14)
SATELLITE CONSTELLATIONS COULD CREATE SPIRALING SPACE DEBRIS - To date, close to 30,000 satellites have been launched into Earth's orbit, leading to mounting concerns over the debris created when they collide. In a new analysis posted to the preprint server arXiv, Hugh Lewis of the University of Birmingham shows that satellite constellations can grow so large t... More (Source: Phys.org - Aug 13)
H3 LAUNCHES NAVIGATION SATELLITE - A Japanese H3 rocket successfully launched a navigation satellite Aug. 10, more than seven months after a similar launch ended in failure. The H3-22S rocket lifted off from the Tanegashima Space Center at 3:23 p.m. Eastern, after several days of delays caused by a passing typhoon. The rocket’s upp... More (Source: SpaceNews - Aug 12)
SPACEX LAUNCHES 24 STARLINK SATELLITES ON FALCON 9 ROCKET FROM VANDENBERG SFB - SpaceX launched two dozen of its Starlink satellites to low Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base on Tuesday night. The Starlink 17-49 mission was SpaceX’s 51st flight from the West Coast so far this year. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 4 East happened at 9:46 p.m. PDT (12:46 a.m. ... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Aug 12)
