AX-1 UNDOCKS FROM SPACE STATION AFTER EXTENDED STAY - A Crew Dragon undocked from the International Space Station April 24 carrying four private astronauts who spent nearly twice as long on the station as originally planned. The Crew Dragon spacecraft Endeavour undocked from the station at 9:10 p.m. Eastern. The undocking sets up a splashdown off the Florida coast scheduled for 1:06 p.m. Eastern April 25. While SpaceX has several potential landing sites to choose from, NASA said the primary site is in the Atlantic Ocean offshore from Jacksonville.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Apr 25)

IRIDIUM IN TALKS TO LAUNCH MORE BACKUP SATELLITES THIS YEAR - Iridium expects to take advantage of a rideshare opportunity this year to launch up to five of the six spare satellites it has been storing in Arizona. The satellite operator expects to make a formal announcement about the potential $35 million launch deal in “the next couple weeks,” company spokesperson Jordan Hassin said. Matt Desch, Iridium’s CEO, first disclosed plans to deploy ground spares in the company’s April 19 earnings call for the first quarter of 2022. “I want to be clear that we do not have an immediate need to launch these satellites,” Desch said. “Our constellation is very healthy and is performing well, but our ground spares have little utility just sitting in storage.”   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Apr 24)

WATCH SPACEX'S PRIVATE AX-1 ASTRONAUT MISSION LEAVE THE SPACE STATION SUNDAY - Update for 12:30 pm ET: The Ax-1 astronaut crew's undocking from the International Space Station has been postponed to no earlier than Sunday, April 24, due to bad weather at SpaceX's splashdown sites. Undocking is now targeted for 8:55 p.m. EDT on Sunday (0055 April 25 GMT), with a splashdown planned for Monday at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT). The first-ever all-private astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS) is about to head for home, and you can watch the departure live.   More
(Source: Space.com - Apr 24)

SPACEX’S CREW-4 LAUNCH POSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER - The launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying Crew-4 astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) has been postponed from Saturday, April 23, 2022, to no earlier than Tuesday, April 26. According to NASA, weather considerations factored into the decision to postpone. In addition to a possible Tuesday launch, there will be launch opportunities Wednesday, April 27, and Thursday, April 28. Viewers can follow the mission’s countdown and launch online on NASA TV, the NASA app, and the agency’s website.   More
(Source: EarthSky - Apr 23)

NASA UPDATES COVERAGE FOR AXIOM MISSION 1 DEPARTURE FROM SPACE STATION - The four-member private astronaut crew is scheduled to undock from the space station at 6:35 p.m. EDT Saturday, April 23, to begin the journey home, with splashdown off the coast of Florida targeted for about 1:46 p.m. Sunday, April 24. The integrated teams at Axiom Space, NASA, and SpaceX have agreed on the adjusted return plan based on weather for splashdown of the first private astronaut mission to visit the orbital laboratory and the return trajectory required to bring the crew and the SpaceX Dragon Endeavour spacecraft back to Earth safely.    More
(Source: NASA - Apr 22)

ONEWEB SIGNS CONTRACT TO LAUNCH SATELLITES FROM INDIA IN 2022 - OneWeb has signed a contract to use India’s largest launch vehicle to deploy at least some of its remaining LEO broadband satellites this year, according to a company executive. The U.K.-based megaconstellation startup said in a brief April 20 news release it has reached an agreement with New Space India Limited, Indian space agency ISRO’s commercial arm, that covers launches from Satish Dhawan Space Centre for an undisclosed number of satellites.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Apr 22)

SPACEX LAUNCH CADENCE MOVES FORWARD WITH 53 MORE STARLINK SATELLITES TO ORBIT - SpaceX has launched its 15th Falcon 9 of the year, lofting another batch of 53 Starlink satellites on the Starlink Group 4-14 mission. Liftoff occurred on April 21 at 1:51 PM EDT (17:51 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station (CCSFS) in Florida. As is traditional these days, the Falcon 9 for this mission featured a flight-proven booster, B1060. This booster flew for the 12th time, being the second one in the fleet to achieve that – and just one month after B1051 became the first one to reach 12 flights.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Apr 22)

WEATHER SATELLITE PREPARES FOR LIGHTNING - As one of the last milestones before liftoff at the end of the year, the first Meteosat Third Generation weather satellite is being fitted with its Lightning Imager. From geostationary orbit, 36,000 km above Earth's surface, this state-of-the-art European instrument will continuously monitor lightning over more than 80% of Earth's disk for early warnings of dangerous storms. Remarkably, it is capable of imaging relatively weak lightning events in full sunlight.   More
(Source: Phys.org - Apr 21)

PRIVATE AX-1 ASTRONAUTS EXTEND STAY ON SPACE STATION: DRAGON ENDEAVOUR DEPARTURE POSTPONED - NASA Mission Control has informed the Expedition 67 and Axiom Mission 1 (Ax-1) crews aboard the International Space Station that because of unfavorable weather at the splashdown location for recovery of the Dragon Endeavour and the Ax-1 crew, the integrated operations team at NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX has postponed the spacecraft’s planned departure from the orbiting laboratory.   More
(Source: SciTechDaily - Apr 20)

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