SPACEX LAUNCHES FINAL GEN. 1 ONEWEB SATELLITES ON 100TH ORBITAL FLIGHT OF 2024 - SpaceX completed its 100th orbital launch of the year for its Falcon family of rockets late Saturday night in California. It reach this first-time milestone by launching OneWeb’s final batch of its first generation internet satellites. The mission, dubbed OneWeb Launch #20, lifted off from Vand... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 20)
‘HUMANITY WOULD WATCH HELPLESSLY AS SPACE JUNK MULTIPLIES UNCONTROLLABLY’: HAS THE NUMBER OF SATELLITE LAUNCHES REACHED A TIPPING POINT? - “Since the start of the space age, we’ve had a throwaway culture – a bit like plastics in the ocean,” says Nick Shave, managing director of Astroscale UK, an in-orbit servicing company headquartered in Japan. Getting a satellite into orbit around the Earth used to be a big deal. From the ... More (Source: The Guardian - Oct 20)
INTELSAT 33E LOSES POWER IN GEOSTATIONARY ORBIT - Intelsat 33e has lost power in geostationary orbit and the satellite is no longer providing communications for customers across Europe, Africa and parts of Asia Pacific, its operator announced Oct. 19. Intelsat said it is working with satellite maker Boeing to address the anomaly, but “believe ... More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 20)
SPACEX LAUNCHES 20 STARLINK INTERNET SATELLITES FROM FLORIDA - SpaceX sent yet another batch of its Starlink internet satellites to orbit tonight (Oct. 18). A Falcon 9 rocket topped with 20 Starlink craft, including 13 with direct-to-cell capability, lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station tonight at 7:31 p.m. EDT (2331 GMT). The Falc... More (Source: Space.com - Oct 19)
CHINA LAUNCHES NEW EARTH OBSERVATION SATELLITE - China on Wednesday sent a new Earth observation satellite into space from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China. The Gaofen-12 05 satellite was launched at 7:45 a.m. (Beijing Time) aboard a Long March-4C carrier rocket and entered the planned orbit successfully. It will be use... More (Source: Xinhua - Oct 18)
NASA WEIGHING OPTIONS FOR CONTINUOUS HUMAN PRESENCE IN LEO AFTER ISS - NASA is rethinking its desire for a “continuous human presence” in low Earth orbit during the transition from the International Space Station to commercial platforms to include options where, at least temporarily, the agency may not always have astronauts in orbit. In a talk at the Internatio... More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 18)
ISS LEAKS AMONG 50 'AREAS OF CONCERN' FOR ASTRONAUT SAFETY: REPORT - NASA and its Russian counterpart have identified 50 "areas of concern" related to a long-running leak aboard the space station, a media report states. The leak has been ongoing since 2019 in the Russian segment of the International Space Station (ISS) and was the focus of a new report from NASA's... More (Source: Space.com - Oct 18)
HOW MUCH DO SPACEX'S REENTERING STARLINK SATELLITES POLLUTE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE? - Satellite megaconstellation operators are getting a lot of flak from atmospheric scientists lately for polluting Earth's upper atmosphere. But is the criticism justified? Who is the biggest contributor to the emerging environmental problem? About 40% of disused satellites burning up in Earth's at... More (Source: Space.com - Oct 18)
CHINA LAUNCHES SECOND BATCH OF 18 SATELLITES FOR THOUSAND SAILS MEGACONSTELLATION - China successfully launched the second group of 18 satellites for the planned 14,000-satellite Thousand Sails megaconstellation Tuesday. A Long March 6A rocket lifted off from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, north China, at 7:06 a.m. Eastern (1106 UTC) Oct. 15. The China Aerospace Science and Te... More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 16)
POLLUTION FROM ROCKET LAUNCHES AND BURNING SATELLITES COULD CAUSE THE NEXT ENVIRONMENTAL EMERGENCY - The growing number of rocket launches and satellites burning up in Earth's atmosphere could trigger the world's next big environmental emergency. Experts are racing to understand the new threat before it's too late. The space industry is booming. Over the past 15 years, the number of rockets laun... More (Source: Space.com - Oct 16)
VAST PROPOSES ITS HAVEN-2 DESIGN TO SUCCEED THE ISS - Vast is targeting a contract to build the successor to the International Space Station (ISS), unveiling Haven-2 on Monday, its proposed space station design. Vast said it developed Haven-2 to offer a compelling solution to ensure continued U.S. and international partner presence in Low-Earth Orbit (... More (Source: Via Satellite - Oct 15)
CHINA’S SECRETIVE NEW 'THOUSANDS SAILS' SATELLITES ARE AN ASTRONOMER'S NIGHTMARE, 1ST OBSERVATIONS REVEAL - China's recently launched "Thousand Sails" satellites are so bright they can clearly be seen with the naked eye at night, far exceeding the limits proposed by astronomical authorities, experts say. Many more of the mysterious satellites will be launched over the next few years — some of which c... More (Source: Live Science - Oct 15)
SPACEX'S CREW-8 ASTRONAUTS TO DEPART ISS FOR TRIP HOME SOON AMID WEATHER DELAYS - SpaceX's Crew-8 astronauts will have to wait a bit longer to begin their trip home to Earth after plans to depart the International Space Station Sunday morning (Oct. 13) were postponed by bad weather at their splashdown site. Crew-8's Dragon capsule, named Endeavour, was scheduled to undock from... More (Source: Space.com - Oct 14)
'STUNNING WAS THE WORD': ASTRONAUTS SNAP AMAZING AURORA PHOTO FROM ISS DURING SEVERE GEOMAGNETIC STORM - The auroras were pretty special on Thursday night (Oct. 10) — especially if you got to see them from orbit. NASA astronauts Don Pettit and Matthew Dominick are in that very exclusive club, getting a bird's-eye view of the amazing auroral displays — which were supercharged by a recent solar st... More (Source: Space.com - Oct 14)
IRAN SENDS SATELLITES TO RUSSIA FOR ROCKET LAUNCH, TASNIM REPORTS - Iran has sent two locally made satellites to Russia to be put into orbit by a Russian space vehicle, the semi-official news agency Tasnim reported Saturday, in the latest space cooperation between the two U.S.-sanctioned countries. The development of Kowsar, a high-resolution imaging satellite, a... More (Source: VOA News - Oct 13)
SPACEX PULLS OFF MID-AIR LAUNCH PAD CAPTURE OF DESCENDING SUPER HEAVY BOOSTER - In one of the most dramatic, high-risk space flights to date, SpaceX launched a gargantuan Super Heavy-Starship rocket on an unpiloted test flight Sunday and then used giant “mechazilla” robot arms on the pad gantry to pluck the returning first stage out of the sky in an unprecedented feat of en... More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 13)
CHINA LAUNCHES THIRD HIGH ORBIT INTERNET SATELLITE - China launched a new communications satellite towards geostationary orbit Thursday, although its precise role remains undisclosed. A Long March 3B lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center, southwest China, at 9:50 a.m. Eastern, Oct. 10 (1350 UTC). The China Aerospace Science and Technol... More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 12)
SHIJIAN-19 REUSABLE SATELLITE LANDS AFTER 2 WEEKS IN SPACE - China’s first retrievable and reusable satellite returned to Earth late Thursday following two weeks of experiments in low Earth orbit. The Shijian-19 satellite touched down at 10:39 p.m. Eastern Oct. 10 (0239 UTC, Oct. 11) at the Dongfeng landing site near Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in th... More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 11)
OCEAN EXPERTS RAISE CONCERNS OVER DEORBITING THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - NASA is faced with the challenge of safely deorbiting, in one fell swoop, over 400 tons of space hardware in a few years. As of now, the agency plans on deorbiting the International Space Station in early 2031 by dragging it back toward Earth and dumping it into an isolated patch of the Pacific Ocea... More (Source: SpaceNews - Oct 11)
