NASA TO PROVIDE LIVE COVERAGE OF SPACE STATION CARGO LAUNCH, DOCKING - NASA will provide live coverage of the launch and docking of a Russian cargo spacecraft carrying about three tons of food, fuel, and supplies for the Expedition 67 crew aboard the International Space Station. The unpiloted Russian Progress 81 is scheduled to launch at 5:32 a.m. EDT (2:32 p.m. Baikonur time) Friday, June 3, on a Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Coverage will begin at 5:15 a.m. on NASA Television, the NASA app, and the agency’s website. More (Source: NASA - Jun 1)
ELON MUSK DETAILS GENERATION 2 STARLINK SATELLITES - Starlink, Elon Musk's satellite internet company, has developed a second-generation satellite for low Earth orbit, but it's too big for takeoff. The Gen2 satellite is considerably larger than the over 2,500 Starlink satellites orbiting 340 miles above the Earth's surface. Gen2 satellites are 22 feet long and weigh 2,755 pounds, according to an interview with Musk on the YouTube show Everyday Astronaut on Thursday. The first-generation satellites weigh 573 pounds, or about one-fifth as much as Gen2. More (Source: CNET - Jun 1)
BETELGEUSE'S 'GREAT DIMMING' HAD AN UNLIKELY OBSERVER: A JAPANESE WEATHER SATELLITE - Astronomers have a new way to study stars: take advantage of meteorological satellites orbiting Earth. That's the conclusion of a new paper that presents new data from a Japanese weather satellite that just so happened to observe the red supergiant star Betelgeuse during a period of inexplicable dimming. The serendipitous observations could mean a new tool for astronomers trying to understand how a red supergiant star loses mass and ultimately explode as a supernova. More (Source: Space.com - Jun 1)
WHAT'S NEXT FOR BOEING'S STARLINER CAPSULE AFTER HISTORIC SPACE STATION MISSION? - Boeing's Starliner capsule will get a thorough going-over now that it's back on Earth. Starliner launched on May 19, kicking off a crucial uncrewed demonstration mission to the International Space Station called Orbital Flight Test 2 (OFT-2). The spacecraft docked with the orbiting lab a day later, then came back to Earth on Wednesday (May 25), touching down as planned at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. More (Source: Space.com - May 31)
CHINA ROLLS OUT ROCKET FOR SHENZHOU-14 CREWED MISSION - China is preparing to launch three astronauts to its Tiangong space station to oversee a crucial phase of construction of the orbital outpost. The Long March 2F rocket was rolled out to the pad at Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert early on May 29. The 62-meter-long rocket was transferred vertically across the roughly 1,500 meters from the assembly building to the pad at no faster than 30 meters per minute. The launcher and the Shenzhou-14 crew spacecraft had been assembled and stored vertically at the site for more than 280 days as it stood on standby in case of need of an emergency on the space station. More (Source: SpaceNews - May 30)
GENERAL DYNAMICS WINS GROUND SYSTEMS CONTRACT FOR SPACE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY’S MEGACONSTELLATION - General Dynamics Mission Systems won a $324.5 million contract to operate the ground systems and manage network operations of the Space Development Agency’s low Earth orbit constellation, the agency announced May 26. The seven-year contract is for $162.9 million as a baseline, with $161.5 million in options to establish the ground operations and integration (O&I) segment for SDA’s Tranche 1 constellation, a mesh network projected to have as many as 166 communications, data-relay and sensor satellites to support military users around the world. More (Source: SpaceNews - May 29)
SPACEX REPLACING HEAT SHIELD ON UPCOMING CREW DRAGON MISSION AFTER FAILED TEST - SpaceX will replace the heat shield on the next Crew Dragon spacecraft flying to the International Space Station after it failed inspections, but NASA says there is no risk of a similar problem for the spacecraft currently at the station. In a May 24 statement to reporters, NASA said that a heat shield structure that SpaceX built for the Crew-5 mission to the station, slated to launch in early September, failed an acceptance test earlier this month and will not be used on that spacecraft. More (Source: SpaceNews - May 29)
LAUNCHED IN SECRET: ARMENIA'S FIRST SATELITE JOINS EARH ORBIT - On May 26, during a government meeting, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan announced that Armenia’s first satellite of Armenia had been launched into space: “On May 25, 2022, at 22:35 Yerevan time, the first satellite of the Republic of Armenia was launched into orbit from the space station at Cape Canaveral, USA”. When the satellite was launched, Minister of High-Tech Industry Robert Khachatryan and Armenian Ambassador to the United States Lilit Makunts were on site. More (Source: JAM-news - May 27)
‘UNSUSTAINABLE’: HOW SATELLITE SWARMS POSE A RISING THREAT TO ASTRONOMY - It’s been three years since SpaceX, an aerospace company in Hawthorne, California, launched its first batch of Starlink Internet-communication satellites, sparking concern among astronomers about the streaks the satellites leave in photographs of the night sky. Since then, many other Starlinks have launched: more than 2,300 of them now orbit Earth, comprising nearly half of all operational satellites. But accumulating evidence reveals just how much these satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will interfere with astronomical observatories and other skywatchers around the globe. More (Source: Nature - May 27)
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