CYGNUS SUPPLY SHIP REACHES SPACE STATION WITH TITANIUM TOILET - A Northrop Grumman Cygnus cargo ship arrived at the International Space Station on Monday, delivering nearly four tons of supplies and experiments to the research lab and its crew, including a $23 million titanium toilet and a high-definition virtual reality camera planned for use on a future spacewalk. Capping an automated laser-guided rendezvous sequence, the Cygnus cargo freighter moved within 40 feet (12 meters) of the space station early Monday, close enough for the lab’s Canadian-built robotic arm to reach out and grapple it.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 6)

IT'S TIME TO RECKON WITH SPACE JUNK - We’re well into our seventh decade of treating outer space like a dumpster. Sixty-three years ago, on Oct. 4, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the first artificial satellite. Its rocket body was the first piece of orbital debris. Little did we know what had begun. Since then, the amount of space junk has increased astronomically, especially in low-Earth orbit (altitudes less than 1,000 km from Earth), due to its ease of access for satellite placement.   More
(Source: The Hill - Oct 5)

WORLD SPACE WEEK 2020 IS CELEBRATING SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY. HERE'S HOW TO WATCH. - World Space Week 2020 kicks off today (Oct. 4) and will celebrate how satellites have changed humanity with a variety of online events to appeal to space enthusiasts and young students alike. The international celebration commemorates how space improves "the human condition", according to the World Space Week website. The events stretch from Oct. 4 – the anniversary of first satellite Sputnik's launch in 1957 – to Oct. 10, the anniversary of the signing of the Outer Space Treaty in 1967 that underlies space law.   More
(Source: Space.com - Oct 5)

AN ARISS SLOW-SCAN TV EVENT FROM THE ISS IS SCHEDULED - An Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) slow-scan television (SSTV) event from the ISS is set to begin on October 4 at 1400 UTC for setup and operation, continuing until October 8 at 1915 UTC. Dates and times are subject to change, due to ISS operational adjustments. Images will be downlinked at 145.800 MHz ±3 kHz for Doppler shift. The expected SSTV mode is PD 120.   More
(Source: ARRL - Oct 4)

SPACE FORCE ANNOUNCES NEW NICKNAMES FOR GPS SATELLITES - The Space Force says it changed the nickname of a GPS navigation satellite launched in June from Columbus to instead honor Matthew Henson, a Black explorer on the first expedition to the North Pole more than a century ago, “to acknowledge a fuller history of courageous explorers and pioneers.”   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 4)

LAUNCH SENDS UGA’S FIRST RESEARCH SATELLITE INTO SPACE - A student-led effort to get the University of Georgia’s first research satellite into space is finally a success. It took a few delays, but the small satellite SPOC, short for Spectral Ocean Color, had liftoff aboard an Antares rocket from the Wallops Facility in Virginia on Friday night, Oct. 2. It is now on its way to the International Space Station to deploy in a few weeks.   More
(Source: University of Georgia - Oct 4)

AIR LEAK AT INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION LOCALIZED TO RUSSIA’S ZVEZDA MODULE - Cosmonauts localized an air leak at the International Space Station to Russia’s Zvezda service module, Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, told TASS Tuesday. "After conducting an analysis and a search for the location of the air leak from the ISS atmosphere it had been determined that it is in the Zvezda service module, where scientific equipment is stored," the agency said.   More
(Source: TASS - Oct 3)

CHINA SELECTS 18 NEW ASTRONAUTS AHEAD OF SPACE STATION CONSTRUCTION - China’s human spaceflight agency has selected a group of 18 new astronauts to participate in the country’s upcoming space station project. The China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) announced the results Thursday (Chinese), a few days after the final decisions. The 18 new Chinese astronauts consist of seven pilots, seven spaceflight engineers and four payload specialists. The final selection includes just one woman.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Oct 3)

A NEW CHINESE BROADBAND SATELLITE CONSTELLATION - Can we afford the wasted capacity and idle investment of SpaceX satellites remaining dormant while flying above China and GW satellites remaining dormant while flying above the US? In an earlier post, I described three Chinese low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations that seemed to be oriented toward broadband communication.    More
(Source: CircleID - Oct 3)

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