NASA, SPACEX CLEAR CREW DRAGON FOR CRITICAL MARCH 2 TEST FLIGHT - NASA managers held a flight readiness review Friday and cleared SpaceX to press ahead with work to ready a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon commercial ferry ship for launch March 2 on an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station. The long-awaited mission is a critical milestone in NASA’s $6.8 billion Commercial Crew Program, intended to end the agency’s sole reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to ferry U.S. and partner astronauts to and from the station in the wake of the space shuttle’s retirement eight years ago.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Feb 25)

WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY DEVELOPS CAMERA THAT COULD PREVENT SATELLITE COLLISIONS - World-first technology which can track objects in space in real time, even during the day, has been labelled a "game changer" by the Australian Air Force. The Astrosite, developed at Western Sydney University (WSU), could help prevent satellites located beyond the Earth's atmosphere smashing into each other. The design of the new camera was inspired by human biology, its creator Associate Professor Greg Cohen, said.   More
(Source: ABC Local - Feb 24)

VIRGIN GALACTIC FLIES FIRST TEST PASSENGER TO THE EDGE OF SPACE - A Virgin Galactic rocket plane on Friday soared to the edge of space with a test passenger for the first time, nudging British billionaire Richard Branson’s company closer to its goal of suborbital flights for space tourists. Virgin Galactic’s chief astronaut instructor Beth Moses, who will train future space tourists, joined pilots onboard SpaceShipTwo VSS Unity to evaluate the customer experience and cabin.   More
(Source: The Japan Times - Feb 24)

EMERGENCY AT EGYPTIAN SATELLITE LAUNCH CAUSED BY HUMAN FACTOR - SOURCE - The emergency situation during the recent launch of the Egyptian earth observation satellite Egyptsat-A was caused by incorrect calibration of fuel sensors on the Soyuz carrier rocket prior to launch, a Russian space industry source told Sputnik. Roscosmos said Thursday that EgyptSat-A had been successfully delivered to the designated orbit and was operating in nominal regime. However, Russian space industry sources told Sputnik that the third stage of the Soyuz rocket failed to bring the Egyptian satellite to a target orbit, and the Fregat booster was used to compensate for the orbiting error.   More
(Source: Sputnik International - Feb 23)

EUROPE’S MOST STATE-OF-THE-ART SATELLITE AND SPACE TECHNOLOGY CENTER BEGINS OPERATION - Airbus’ Friedrichshafen site has opened Europe’s most state-of-the-art satellite integration and space technology center, known as the Integrated Technology Centre (ITC). The ITC, which triples the area of cleanroom space to 4,200 m2, is dedicated to building satellites, probes, space instruments and experimental technologies. The center took only two years to build at a total cost of approximately €45 million. “Airbus’s significant investment in this building also represents an investment in the future – both for the Airbus site at Lake Constance and for Baden-Wuerttemberg as an aerospace location. When it comes to space technology, we are now a step ahead of the rest of Germany – in terms of science and research, development and technology, and enthusiasm for the aerospace industry,” said Baden-Wuerttemberg’s Minister-President, Winfried Kretschmann.   More
(Source: Geospatial World - Feb 23)

SPACEX WILL LAUNCH ITS 1ST CREW DRAGON FOR NASA SOON! HOW TO WATCH IT ALL LIVE - Next week, SpaceX is poised to make history with the first-ever test flight of a private spaceship built to carry astronauts into orbit. That Crew Dragon Demo-1 mission won't carry astronauts, but it will be the first launch of a spacecraft built for humans from U.S. soil since 2011 and you can watch it all live. SpaceX will launch the Crew Dragon Demo-1 mission at 2:48 a.m. EST (0748 GMT) on Saturday, March 2. Since Crew Dragon is designed to ferry NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station, you can expect a live webcast of the launch from the space agency.    More
(Source: Space.com - Feb 22)

EGYPTIAN OBSERVATION SATELLITE LAUNCHED BY RUSSIAN ROCKET - A Soyuz rocket, with the help of a Fregat upper stage, delivered an Egyptian Earth observation satellite into a polar orbit at an altitude of more than 400 miles (650 kilometers) Thursday, overcoming an apparent technical problem after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, according to Russian news reports. The Soyuz-2.1b rocket lifted off from pad 31 at Baikonur at 1647 GMT (11:47 a.m. EST; 9:47 p.m. local time) with EgyptSat-A, a remote sensing satellite built by Russia’s RSC Energia aerospace manufacturer to provide the Egyptian military and other government agencies with high-resolution surveillance imagery.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Feb 22)

WATCH THIS SPACE HARPOON SPEAR A PIECE OF ORBITING DEBRIS - It’s a hit! A harpoon designed to help clean up the hundreds of thousands of pieces of space junk now orbiting Earth passed a key test earlier this month when it successfully speared a piece of simulated debris. As dramatic footage of the Feb. 8 test shows, a European satellite known as “RemoveDebris” test-fired a barbed titanium spear about the size of a writing pen at an aluminum panel attached to the satellite by a short boom.   More
(Source: NBC News - Feb 21)

ISRO'S NEW ROCKET LIKELY TO CARRY 2 DEFENCE SATELLITES - Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will fly two small defence satellites in July or August this year on its new rocket-- now known as Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV). "We are planning to fly two defence satellites, each weighing about 120 kg in our new rocket SSLV this July or August. The rocket design recently underwent a detailed integrated technical review," K Sivan, ISRO Chairman, told news agency IANS on Wednesday.   More
(Source: NDTV - Feb 21)

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