WILL THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION'S 2031 DEATH DIVE CAUSE POLLUTION PROBLEMS? - The International Space Station is something of a problem child. The orbital outpost is plagued by cracks, coolant and air leaks, even a surprising smell that recently wafted into the station from a just-arrived Russian Progress cargo ship. And the station has high-speed, close encounters with space junk from time to time that make the facility a risky residence. So, there's escalating worry that the aging complex has become a questionable home for crews to be safe and sound. More (Source: Space.com - Dec 5)
CHINA LAUNCHES NEW REMOTE-SENSING SATELLITE - China on Wednesday launched a new remote-sensing satellite from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province. Launched at 12:46 p.m. (Beijing Time) by a Kuaizhou-1A (KZ-1A) carrier rocket, the remote-sensing satellite, equipped with synthetic aperture radar (SAR), has entered its planned orbit. More (Source: gov.cn - Dec 5)
EUROPE’S MOST ADVANCED WEATHER SATELLITE IS NOW FULLY OPERATIONAL - The first of EUMETSAT’s Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) geostationary satellites – called Meteosat-12 - has become fully operational. It gives an important and welcome boost to the ability of the WMO community to forecast extreme weather and monitor climate change. The two main instruments on board Meteosat-12, the Flexible Combined Imager and the Lightning Imager, play a crucial role in enabling meteorological services to help protect lives and livelihoods by providing high-resolution, accurate data for predicting severe weather events. More (Source: World Meteorological Organization WMO - Dec 5)
CHINA LAUNCHES CLANDESTINE TJS-13 SATELLITE, ROCKET REACHES MILESTONE - China launched a new communication engineering test satellite early Tuesday, adding to a series of satellites potentially for undisclosed military purposes. A Long March 3B rocket lifted off at 12:56 a.m. Eastern (0556 UTC) Dec. 3 from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center, southwest China. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) announced launch success, revealing the previously undisclosed payload to be communication technology experiment Satellite-13, or Tongxin Jishu Shiyan-13 (TJS-13). The satellite is expected to be in geosynchronous transfer orbit. More (Source: SpaceNews - Dec 4)
NASA TO COVER ITS 31ST SPACEX RESUPPLY MISSION STATION DEPARTURE - NASA and its international partners are set to receive scientific research samples and hardware as a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft departs the International Space Station on Thursday, Dec. 5, for its return to Earth. NASA’s live coverage of undocking and departure begins at 10:50 a.m. EST on NASA+. Learn how to watch NASA content through a variety of platforms, including social media. More (Source: NASA - Dec 3)
FRUIT FLIES IN SPACE! CHINESE ASTRONAUTS SHOW OFF EXPERIMENT ON TIANGONG SPACE STATION - China's Shenzhou 19 astronauts have some winged companions to oversee aboard the country's space station. The astronauts arrived at the Tiangong space station on Oct. 29, beginning their six-month-long stay in orbit. They have since been joined by 15 adult fruit flies and 40 pupae, which arrived aboard the Tianzhou 8 resupply mission on Nov. 15. More (Source: Space.com - Dec 3)
OPEN COSMOS TO BUILD 3 SATELLITES FOR ESA TO MONITOR EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD - Open Cosmos won a 35 million euro ($37 million) contract from the European Space Agency (ESA) to build three satellites to monitor Earth’s magnetic field in the NanoMagSat mission. The first satellite is expected to launch by late 2027 with the second and third to follow. Open Cosmos will serve as the prime contractor and satellite manufacturer. CEA-Léti in France will contribute the payload development and magnetometer manufacturer and Comet Aerospace in Spain will deliver the deployable boom and optical bench. More (Source: Via Satellite - Dec 3)
GLOBAL PUSH FOR COOPERATION AS SPACE TRAFFIC CROWDS EARTH ORBIT - The rapid increase in satellites and space junk will make low Earth orbit unusable unless companies and countries cooperate and share the data needed to manage that most accessible region of space, experts and industry insiders said. A United Nations panel on space traffic coordination in late October determined that urgent action was necessary and called for a comprehensive shared database of orbital objects as well as an international framework to track and manage them. More (Source: Reuters - Dec 2)
ROSKOSMOS LAUNCHES KONDOR-FKA2 RADAR IMAGER - A Soyuz-2 rocket lifted off from Vostochny Cosmodrome on Nov. 30, 2023, carrying the Kondor FKA No. 2 radar satellite. It was the fifth mission to orbit an all-weather, day-and-night imaging spacecraft from the Kondor family, counting one previous FKA variant, one classified military version, known as Neitron, and two original Kondors. More (Source: RussianSpaceWeb.com - Dec 1)
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