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)

BIDEN-HARRIS ADMINISTRATION EXTENDS SPACE STATION OPERATIONS THROUGH 2030 - NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced today the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to extend International Space Station (ISS) operations through 2030, and to work with our international partners in Europe (ESA, European Space Agency), Japan (JAXA, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), Canada (CSA, Canadian Space Agency), and Russia (State Space Corporation Roscosmos) to enable continuation of the groundbreaking research being conducted in this unique orbiting laboratory through the rest of this decade.   More
(Source: NASA - Jan 2)

NASA AND ROCKET LAB CLEAR WAY FOR ELECTRON LAUNCH FROM VIRGINIA IN 2022 - Rocket Lab‘s launch site at the Wallops Flight Facility on the eastern coast of Virginia is expected to see a launch in 2022, as Rocket Lab and NASA near completion of a new flight safety certification system. Launch Complex 2 will be the company’s first launch site in the United States. It was built specifically for the Electron rocket and is expected to support monthly orbital launches for both U.S. government and commercial missions.   More
(Source: Via Satellite - Jan 2)

THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION WRAPS UP A BUSY 2021 - The ISS, now in its twenty-first year of continuous human occupation, has had a busy year of operations. Two new modules were added and 18 visiting vehicles were at the Station throughout the year. In total, 23 humans called the orbiting outpost home in 2021. This year marked the completion of the Russian Orbital Segment – shortened to ROS – with the arrival of Nauka and Prichal, the first of which replaced the Pirs module.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Jan 2)

IRAN LAUNCHES ROCKET INTO SPACE AMID NUCLEAR TALKS - Iran launched a rocket with a satellite carrier bearing three devices into space, authorities announced Thursday, without saying whether any of the objects had entered Earth’s orbit. It was not clear when the launch happened or what devices the carrier brought with it. Iran aired footage of the blastoff against the backdrop of negotiations in Vienna to restore Tehran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers. An eighth round had been underway this week and is to resume after New Year’s holidays.   More
(Source: NBC News - Jan 2)

RUSSIA LAUNCHES THIRD AND FINAL ANGARA A5 DEMONSTRATION MISSION - Russia has launched its third and final demonstration flight of the Angara A5 rocket on Monday, December 27. Angara is being developed and built by the Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center and is intended to replace several existing launch vehicles. Angara attempted to place its 2,400 kg mass simulator in a near geostationary orbit (GEO) using a new Persei upper stage. After a few hours, the Persei upper stage was to perform two burns to place the payload in a graveyard orbit, a few hundred kilometers above GEO. Russian reports, however, suggest that Persei only reached an initial low Earth parking orbit before suffering an engine failure.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Dec 31)

IRAN’S SIMORGH ROCKET FALLS SHORT OF ORBIT WITH THREE PAYLOADS ABOARD - Iran’s Simorgh rocket appears to have suffered another failure during a previously-unexpected launch Thursday. Iranian media has reported that the rocket lifted off from the Imam Khomeini Space Centre at 03:30 UTC (07:00 local time) Thursday morning with three payloads aboard, and although a successful launch was announced, no objects have been detected in orbit. Iran made its first successful satellite launch in February 2009, using a Safir rocket to deploy the Omid spacecraft into low Earth orbit.    More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Dec 31)

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