CHINA SAYS ITS SPACE STATION WILL BE READY THIS YEAR - China has said that its space station, stated to be a major strategic asset in space, will be ready for operations this year, providing a bird's-eye view of the world. Once ready, China will be the only country to own a space station of its own as the International Space Station (ISS) of Russia is a collaborative project of several countries. In an announcement on Wednesday, the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASTC) said that the country will complete the building of the space station in 2022. More (Source: Times of India - Jan 7)
SPACEX LOFTS 49 STARLINK INTERNET SATELLITES TO ORBIT IN 1ST LAUNCH OF 2022 - SpaceX successfully launched its first Falcon 9 rocket of the year Thursday (Jan. 6), sending a new stack of Starlink satellites into orbit from Florida, before nailing a landing at sea. The previously flown Falcon 9 rocket blasted off at 4:49 p.m. EST (2149 GMT) from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station here in Florida, carrying a stack of 49 Starlink satellites. More (Source: Space.com - Jan 7)
WEBB’S SECONDARY MIRROR SUCCESSFULLY DEPLOYED - In another major milestone for the James Webb Space Telescope, a motor-driven tripod unfolded as planned Wednesday, moving a 2.4-foot-wide secondary mirror into position to reflect collected starlight back down to the instruments that will study it. While the deployment of a tennis court-size sunshield Monday and Tuesday marked the most technically challenging hurdle for Webb’s initial activation, getting the secondary mirror in position was equally critical to the success of the $10 billion mission. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 6)
CHINA LIVESTREAMS NEW YEAR'S VIEW FROM NEW SPACE STATION - China welcomed the New Year with a live stream from cameras outside the new Tianhe space station module. In a new video from the China National Space Administration, livestreamed on New Year's Day (Jan. 1), you can now see the beauty of the Earth below from the Tianhe module on China's Tiangong space station. China Central Television began the stream (you can also watch it on Youtube) on the Sina Weibo social media platform, delivering three hours of live footage from the module. More (Source: Space.com - Jan 6)
OP-ED | IS THERE ENOUGH ROOM IN SPACE FOR TENS OF BILLIONS OF SATELLITES, AS ELON MUSK SUGGESTS? WE DON’T THINK SO. - As researchers interested in orbital capacity, it’s surreal to wake up and find Elon Musk commenting on the question that has been central to your work: how many satellites can we fit in low Earth orbit (LEO)? According to a recent interview with the Financial Times, Mr. Musk’s stance is that tens of billions of satellites can coexist in LEO. While we agree this is an important question to ask, especially for someone planning on launching thousands of his own satellites in the near future, his estimation is overly optimistic. In the immortal words of Douglas Adams (and Mr. Musk himself), space is big. But LEO is not big enough to safely accommodate this kind of orbital demand. More (Source: SpaceNews - Jan 5)
THE RULES OF SPACE HAVEN'T BEEN UPDATED IN 50 YEARS, AND THE UN SAYS IT'S TIME - On November 15, 2021, Russia destroyed one of its own old satellites using a missile launched from the surface of Earth, creating a massive debris cloud that threatens many space assets, including astronauts onboard the International Space Station. This happened only two weeks after the United Nations General Assembly First Committee formally recognized the vital role that space and space assets play in international efforts to better the human experience -- and the risks military activities in space pose to those goals. More (Source: CNN - Jan 4)
SPACEX’S FIRST LAUNCH OF 2022 WILL DEPLOY MORE STARLINK INTERNET SATELLITES - SpaceX plans to kick off its 2022 launch schedule with a Falcon 9 rocket flight Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center with the company’s next group of Starlink internet satellites. In a change from previous Starlink missions, the Falcon 9 rocket will fly southeast from the coast of Florida on a course just north of the Bahamas to place the new batch of internet satellites into low Earth orbit a few hundred miles above Earth. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 3)
WHY CAN'T WE PUT A SPACE STATION ON THE MOON? - A space station on the moon could be very useful. It would provide future space missions with a stopping point between leaving the Earth and reaching further into the solar system or even the Milky Way. One reason we haven’t built a space station on the moon is that we don’t send people there very often. We have only managed to put astronauts on the moon six times so far. These moon landings took place in a three-year period between 1969 and 1972 and were part of a series of space missions called the Apollo missions. More (Source: Space.com - Jan 3)
ASTRONAUTS RING IN NEW YEAR ABOARD SPACE STATION TO WELCOME 2022 - The astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station are marking the New Year, becoming only the 37th crew in history to be in space as Earth begins another revolution around the Sun. Expedition 66 crew members Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Kayla Barron and Mark Vande Hei of NASA, Matthias Maurer of the European Space Agency (ESA) and Anton Shkaplerov and Pytor Dubrov of Roscosmos marked New Year's Day as the space station circled the planet. More (Source: Space.com - Jan 2)
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