SPACEX LAUNCHES 53 SATELLITES ON TRANSPORTER-10 RIDESHARE FLIGHT, NAILS ROCKET LANDING - SpaceX launched a big batch of satellites for a variety of private customers today. The company's Transporter-10 mission lifted off right on time at 5:05 p.m. ET (2205 GMT) on Monday (March 4) from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Today's launch will place 53 payloads into various orbits including True Anomaly's Jackal spacecraft, a wide range of cubesats and nanosats, and the Aires satellite built by spacecraft-manufacturer Apex which will carry multiple payloads itself. If all goes well, all 53 satellites should be deployed from SpaceX's upper stage about 2 hours after liftoff.   More
(Source: Space.com - Mar 5)

SPACEX LAUNCHED FALCON 9 ROCKET FROM CAPE CANAVERAL WITH 23 STARLINK SATELLITES - Coming on the heels of the successful launch of the four-person Crew-8 mission heading up to the International Space Station, SpaceX pulled off another Falcon 9 launch from the Cape. The Starlink 6-41 mission saw another batch of 23 internet satellites head up to join the growing constellation in low Earth orbit. Liftoff from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened 6:56 p.m. EST (2356 UTC). The mission rounded out the third Falcon 9 launch in just over 20 hours across the company’s three launch pads between Florida and California.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Mar 5)

AN ENDLESS STREAM OF SATELLITES IS BURNING UP IN THE SKY, AND NOBODY KNOWS THE COST - Elon Musk's SpaceX has announced it will dispose of 100 Starlink satellites over the next six months, after it discovered a design flaw that may cause them to fail. Rather than risk posing a threat to other spacecraft, SpaceX will "de-orbit" these satellites to burn up in the atmosphere. But atmospheric scientists are increasingly concerned that this sort of apparent fly-tipping by the space sector will cause further climate change down on Earth.   More
(Source: ScienceAlert - Mar 4)

ISS ROUNDUP: CYGNUS NG-20, AXIOM MISSION 3, AND PROGRESS MS-26 - This month, the International Space Station (ISS) has seen a flurry of activity, from experiments to vehicle arrivals and departures. Multiple resupply missions by Cygnus and Progress have kept the crew of Expedition 70 healthy onboard the Station. Meanwhile, a private mission from Axiom headed back to Earth with the first-ever all-European commercial crew, and SpaceX Crew-8 prepares to launch to the ISS in the coming days.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Mar 4)

NASA, SPACEX SCRUB CREW-8 ASTRONAUT MISSION TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION DUE TO POOR WEATHER - Update 8:00 p.m. EST: NASA and SpaceX are standing down from the launch due to high winds along the ascent corridor. For the second time this year, SpaceX is preparing to send a quartet of people up to the International Space Station. Its Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft are standing by at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. However, they’ll have to wait another day given that weather along the ascent corridor did not permit a launch late Saturday night.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Mar 3)

NASA CANCELS OSAM-1 SATELLITE SERVICING TECHNOLOGY MISSION - NASA has canceled a multibillion-dollar project to demonstrate satellite servicing technologies that had suffered extensive delays and cost overruns. In a brief statement March 1, NASA announced it was ending the On-Orbit Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (OSAM) 1 mission. OSAM-1 was being developed to refuel the Landsat 7 spacecraft and then perform the in-orbit assembly of a Ka-band satellite antenna. NASA said it was canceling OSAM-1 “due to continued technical, cost, and schedule challenges, and a broader community evolution away from refueling unprepared spacecraft, which has led to a lack of a committed partner.”   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Mar 2)

CHINA LAUNCHES FIRST HIGH ORBIT INTERNET SATELLITE - China launched the first of a new “high orbit” internet satellite series Thursday, apparently to provide internet services to China and surrounding areas. A Long March 3B/G rocket lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern China at 8:03 a.m. Eastern (1303 UTC) Feb. 29. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC) announced launch success within an hour of liftoff. CASC’s statement revealed the previously undisclosed payload to be High orbit satellite internet-01 (Weixing Hulianwan Gaogui-01).   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Mar 1)

RUSSIAN ROCKET SUCCESSFULLY PUTS IRANIAN SATELLITE INTO ORBIT - A Russian rocket on Thursday successfully put an Iranian satellite into orbit, a launch that underlined increasingly close cooperation between Moscow and Tehran. Russia's state-run Roscosmos corporation said that a Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Vostochny launch facility in the country's far east to carry the Iranian satellite and 18 Russian satellites into orbit.   More
(Source: Yahoo News - Mar 1)

NEAR MISS! NASA SATELLITE, DEAD RUSSIAN SPACECRAFT ZOOM PAST EACH OTHER IN ORBIT - A NASA satellite almost got clobbered high above Earth this morning (Feb. 28). At 1:34 a.m. EST (0634 GMT), according to agency officials, the dead Russian spy satellite Cosmos 2221 zoomed uncomfortably close to a NASA craft dubbed TIMED that has been studying Earth's atmosphere since 2001. "While the two non-maneuverable satellites will approach each other again, this was their closest pass in the current predicted orbit determinations, as they are gradually moving apart in altitude," NASA officials wrote in an update today.   More
(Source: Space.com - Feb 29)

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