DESPITE US WARNING, IRAN LAUNCHES SATELLITE AND FAILS - Iran launched a satellite on Tuesday that failed to reach orbit, after the US warned against the launch earlier this month. The satellite "did not reach enough speed in the third stage and was not put into orbit," Mohammad Jahromi, the country's Minister of Communications and Information Technology, told the official IRNA news agency after a ceremony was held for the launch at Imam Khomeini Spaceport early Tuesday. The minister said Iran would launch another satellite soon. More (Source: CNN - Jan 16)
DRAGON CARGO CRAFT RETURNS TO EARTH - A SpaceX-owned commercial cargo craft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean west of Baja California late Sunday, closing out a 39-day mission that delivered 2.8 tons of supplies, experiments and holiday treats to the International Space Station, and returned home with research specimens and no-longer-needed hardware. The unpiloted supply ship, loaded with about 2 tons of gear and experiment specimens, departed the space station at 6:33 p.m. EST (2333 GMT) Sunday with a ground-commanded release from the orbiting research lab’s 58-foot (17.7-meter) Canadian-built robotic arm. The Dragon capsule fired its thrusters for a series of departure burns to fly away from the station’s vicinity, setting up for a deorbit burn at 11:19 p.m. EST (0419 GMT) to slow the craft’s velocity enough to drop out of orbit and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jan 15)
DRAGON CARGO SPACECRAFT UNDOCKED FROM ISS, RETURNS TO EARTH - US cargo spacecraft Dragon left the International Space Station (ISS) after a month in the orbit and is expected to land in the Pacific later on Monday, the spacecraft's manufacturer SpaceX reported late on Sunday.NASA broadcast the undocking of the ship, but due to the temporary suspension of the agency’s work caused by the lack of a budget, the broadcast is not commented. More (Source: Sputnik International - Jan 14)
JAPAN SPACE AGENCY TO MONITOR DETERIORATION OF INFRASTRUCTURE VIA SATELLITE - The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has developed a system to efficiently monitor the deterioration of infrastructure — such as river embankments, airports and harbors — using the Advanced Land Observing Satellite Daichi-2. According to JAXA, it can monitor a wide area at once, which is expected to significantly reduce the amount of labor needed for inspections. The system will be available for a fee to the central government, local governments and private companies, to improve their disaster prevention measures. More (Source: The Japan News - Jan 14)
CHINA LAUNCHES ZHONGXING-2D BROADCASTING SATELLITE — MEDIA - China has successfully put into orbit the Zhongxing 2D telecommunications and broadcasting satellite, the Xinhua news agency reported on Friday. The Long March-3B carrier rocket blasted off from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in the southern province of Sichuan at 01:11 local time on Friday (10:11 Moscow time on Thursday). It was China’s first space launch this year. The satellite will provide transmission services for the country's radio, television stations and cable television networks. It will also be used for a wide range of telecommunications services for data transmission and broadband internet connection. More (Source: TASS - Jan 12)
SPACEX BEGINS 2019 WITH EIGHTH AND FINAL FOR UPGRADED IRIDIUM NETWORK - Ten Iridium communications satellites rode a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit Friday from California in the eighth and final launch for Iridium’s upgraded network over the last two years, and the first of around 18 predicted SpaceX missions planned in 2019. The 229-foot-tall (70-meter) Falcon 9 rocket lit its nine Merlin 1D main engines and climbed away from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, at 7:31:33 a.m. PST (10:31:33 a.m. EST; 1531:33 GMT) Friday. More (Source: SpacewFlight Now - Jan 12)
SPACEX, NASA PUSH 1ST CREW DRAGON TEST FLIGHT TO FEBRUARY - The first uncrewed test flight of SpaceX's new Dragon spacecraft for astronauts will now launch no earlier than February, NASA officials said today (Jan. 10). The Crew Dragon test flight, called Demo-1, was scheduled to launch on Jan. 17 after already being pushed back once from a Jan. 7 target. NASA announced the new schedule slip, which delays the launch by at least two weeks, in a written status update. More (Source: Space.com - Jan 11)
WORLD-FIRST CHAMELEON SATELLITE LEAVING NATIVE BRITISH SHORES - The last component of British-built chameleon satellite, Eutelsat Quantum, is getting ready to leave home for good. The final piece of equipment is part of the new SSTL platform; the chassis that provides a payload with structure, power and the ability to propel itself through space. Representing a major first for the company, the platform weighs in at just over 1 tonne, which is an order of magnitude bigger than any other satellite they have built in the past. Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2019-01-world-first-chameleon-satellite-native-british.html#jCp More (Source: Phys.org - Jan 11)
FIXING BROKEN SATELLITES IN SPACE COULD SAVE COMPANIES BIG MONEY - When your satellite breaks in space, as DigitalGlobe’s did on Monday, there isn’t an easy way to repair it. Technology that’s currently on the horizon may change that, however, allowing satellite providers to staunch their financial losses and get more out of their investments. For DigitalGlobe, the loss was brutal: an Earth-imaging satellite called WorldView-4, which had clients that include Google Maps. A critical instrument needed to stabilize the spacecraft has stopped working properly. Now, the satellite can’t take decent pictures of Earth for DigitalGlobe’s customers, and there seems to be no way to fix the damage. More (Source: The Verge - Jan 11)
Previous Next
