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"I recorded and imaged a "SOLAR FLARE" on one of the ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) on the port 6 (P6) truss on 07-16-21 at 4:05am EST. The ISS max pass was 64° from N/W to S/E. The imaging all took place from my backyard observatory in Manorville NY, USA. After looking over my recorded ISS video, I was very happy to see I just imaged a part of ISS history that is now part of the new solar panel system."

"The ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (iROSA) are lightweight, flexible. This new type of solar array provides much more energy than traditional solar arrays at much less mass. NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and French astronaut Thomas Pesquet with the European Space Agency (ESA) completed a six-hour and 45-minute spacewalk on Friday (June 25), during which they install the second of six new International Space Station (ISS) Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSA). My imaging configuration was an Edge HD 14" telescope with an Baader Red 610 nm Longpass Filter 1.25" on a ZWO ASI174MM (mono) camera at full sensorI 1936 x 1216 and Baader Planetarium Carl Zeiss 1-1/4" 2x Barlow Lens."

You can see more of Philip's images on his FaceBook page.    More
(Source: - Jul 24)

CHINA’S SPACE STATION IS PREPARING TO HOST 1,000 SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTS - China launched the core of its space station in April, and sent three astronauts up in June. But although it probably won’t be complete until late 2022, there is already a long queue of experiments from across the world waiting to go up. Scientists in China told Nature that the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) has tentatively approved more than 1,000 experiments, several of which have already been launched.   More
(Source: Nature - Jul 24)

RUSSIA DELAYS DETACHING OLD SPACE STATION DOCKING PORT WHILE TESTING NEW RESEARCH MODULE IN ORBIT - The departure of Russia's Pirs module from the International Space Station has been delayed until Saturday (July 24) as engineers continue to conduct in-flight tests on its replacement. The 20-year-old Pirs was scheduled to leave the orbiting lab tomorrow (July 23) to open a slot for the Russian Multipurpose Research Module, also known as Nauka, which launched on Wednesday (July 21). But the 22-ton (20 tonnes) Nauka has experienced a few issues during its journey to the orbiting lab, necessitating a change of plans.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jul 24)

IMPAIRED GOES-WEST SATELLITE RETURNS TO SERVICE - The GOES-West weather satellite has returned to service after being down yesterday due to an anomaly. Initially known as GOES-17, and GOES-S before that, an on-board computer reset triggered by the satellite forced it into a safe-hold mode at 1:37 am ET yesterday. In this phase, all of GOES-17’s instruments were automatically turned off. This morning, NOAA announced that GOES-17 is out of safe-hold mode and that engineers expect its six instruments to return to normal operations soon.   More
(Source: Weatherboy - Jul 24)

REPROGRAMMABLE SATELLITE FUELLED PRIOR TO LAUNCH - A sophisticated telecommunications satellite capable of being completely repurposed in orbit has been fuelled ready for its launch on 30 July. Developed under an ESA Partnership Project called Quantum, the satellite is pioneering a new generation of fully reconfigurable satellites that can respond while in orbit to changing demands on Earth during their 15-year lifetimes.   More
(Source: Phys.org - Jul 23)

ORBITS EXPLAINED: SPACE IS SURPRISINGLY CLOSE, BUT IT'S REALLY HARD TO STAY THERE - Space is closer than you might think -- about 62 miles up, only a little farther away from you than San Jose is from San Francisco. Heck, you can get halfway to space in a balloon. But the hardest part about space, isn't so much getting there as staying there. That's where the idea of orbiting comes into play. Once you accomplish the hard work of getting a spacecraft into orbit, you can get years of use out of it as it loops more or less effortlessly around the planet on its own invisible track.   More
(Source: CNET - Jul 22)

RUSSIA LAUNCHES HUGE NAUKA SCIENCE MODULE TO SPACE STATION AFTER YEARS OF DELAYS - Russia's largest space laboratory yet launched into orbit Wednesday (July 21) on a mission to expand the International Space Station after 14 years of delays. The Russian Multipurpose Research Module (MLM), also known as Nauka, blasted off toward the International Space Station at 10:58 EDT (14:58 UTC) atop a Proton-M rocket from Russia's Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The launch was a longtime coming for Nauka, which was originally slated to launch in 2007.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jul 21)

BEZOS FLIES TO SPACE ON BLUE ORIGIN’S FIRST CREW LAUNCH - Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took his brother, a pioneering female pilot, and an 18-year-old Dutch student on an automated flight to the edge of space Tuesday, completing a on a 66-mile-high suborbital hop aboard his company’s New Shepard rocket, the latest achievement in a new era of billionaire-backed human spaceflight.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jul 21)

AFRL CONDUCTS 1,300 EXPERIMENTS ON RECORD-BREAKING SATELLITE - The Air Force Research Laboratory is celebrating the completion of the Demonstration and Science Experiments (DSX) satellite mission, and processing a treasure trove of valuable data that will be studied by scientists for many years to come. The spacecraft was launched June 25, 2019 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station after 16 years of development, integration, and testing.    More
(Source: AF.mil - Jul 20)

JEFF BEZOS TO BLAST INTO SPACE ABOARD NEW SHEPARD ROCKET SHIP - Billionaire Jeff Bezos will blast into space on Tuesday, in the first crewed flight of his rocket ship, New Shepard. He will be accompanied by Mark Bezos, his brother, Wally Funk, an 82-year-old pioneer of the space race, and an 18-year-old student. They will travel in a capsule with the biggest windows flown into space, offering stunning views of the Earth.   More
(Source: BBC News - Jul 20)

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