WATCH RUSSIA LAUNCH ITS FASTEST SPACE STATION CARGO FLIGHT YET ON THURSDAY! - The Russian space agency Roscosmos is about to make history with its fastest cargo flight ever to the International Space Station, launching early Thursday (Oct. 12), and you can watch it live online. Roscosmos will launch a Souyuz rocket carrying the robotic cargo ship Progress 38 from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kasakhstan at 5:32 a.m. EDT (0932 GMT). The cargo ship's superfast trip will bring it to the orbiting lab at 8:56 a.m. EDT (1256 GMT). Total elapsed time from launch to docking will be 3 hours, 24 minutes. You can watch the launch live on NASA TV, courtesy of NASA, beginning at 5:15 a.m. EDT (0915 GMT). More (Source: Space.com - Oct 12)
SPACEX LAUNCHES, LANDS RECYCLED ROCKET - SpaceX on Wednesday launched a rocket that had already flown to space and landed it successfully on an ocean platform, as part of its ongoing effort to recycle costly rocket components. On a clear autumn evening at 6.53pm (2253 GMT), the tall, white Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida carrying the Echostar 105/SES-11 satellite. “Couldn’t be more perfect weather for a launch,” said a commentator on SpaceX’s live webcast. The satellite aims to provide television coverage and communications capabilities to North America, Hawaii, Mexico and the Caribbean. More (Source: New Straits Times Online - Oct 12)
RUSSIAN PROGRESS SUPPLY SHIP POISED FOR SWIFT TRIP TO SPACE STATION - Russian ground crews are readying a robotic Progress cargo freighter for launch Thursday on an expedited trek to the International Space Station that should take less than three-and-a-half hours from liftoff to docking, cutting in half the normal transit time. The Progress MS-07 supply ship is loaded with several tons of food, spare parts, fuel, water and breathing air for the space station’s six-person crew. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 11)
SPACE STATION ASTRONAUTS TAKING SPACEWALK TODAY: WATCH IT LIVE - Two NASA astronauts will head outside of the International Space Station today (Oct. 10) for the second of three planned spacewalks this month. Expedition 53 commander Randy Bresnik and flight engineer Mark Vande Hei, who took a spacewalk together last Thursday (Oct. 5), will spend another 6.5 hours working outside the orbiting laboratory today. They'll continue working on the Latching End Effector (LEE), a "hand" at the end of the Canadarm2 robotic arm, which they replaced last week, and install some new high-definition cameras outside the space station. More (Source: Space.com - Oct 11)
SPACEX TO LAUNCH SES-11 SATELLITE WEDNESDAY - Less than 60 hours after a Falcon 9 rocket launched 10 Iridium NEXT satellites into space from the West Coast, on the other side of the continent SpaceX is set to send the SES-11 spacecraft into orbit for a scheduled liftoff at 6:53 p.m. EDT (22:53 GMT) Oct. 11, 2017, from Launch Complex 39A. Launching atop a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket, SES-11 will be SpaceX’s 15th mission in 2017, continuing a very busy year for the company. The particular first stage used for this mission, core 1031, was first flown during CRS-10 in February 2017. More (Source: SpaceFlight Insider - Oct 11)
HOUSE-SIZED ASTEROID WILL PASS BY EARTH AT JUST ABOVE SATELLITE ALTITUDE - A house-size asteroid will give Earth a near-miss on Thursday, giving experts a rare chance to rehearse for a real-life strike threat as it passes inside the moon’s orbit. Dubbed 2012 TC4, the space rock will shave past at an altitude of less than 44,000km (27,300 miles) – just above the 36,000km plane at which hundreds of geosynchronous satellites orbit the Earth. That represents about an eighth of the distance between the Earth and the moon. More (Source: The Guardian - Oct 11)
JAPAN'S LATEST GPS SATELLITE WILL GUIDE SELF-DRIVING CARS - apan just fulfilled a key part of its space ambitions -- and it'll have important ramifications for everything from self-driving cars to self-defense. The country has launched its fourth Michibiki satellite, which expands a "quasi-zenith" system designed to provide greater access to GPS in urban 'canyons' where buildings tend to block signals from lower-orbit satellites. Needless to say, that's vital for autonomous vehicles that need GPS to get their bearings in a country dominated by sprawling cities. The military might want it, too. While Japan's armed forces are largely focused on defense, this fourth quasi-zenith satellite could help those calling on the nation to buy cruise missiles as a deterrent to North Korea. More (Source: Engadget - Oct 11)
CHINA SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHES EARTH-IMAGING SATELLITE FOR VENEZUELA - A Chinese Long March 2D rocket launched Venezuela’s second Earth-observing surveillance satellite Monday, adding a new space-based reconnaissance asset the country’s government says it will use to aid security forces, emergency responders, farmers, and health professionals. The two-stage, 134-foot-tall (41-meter) Long March 2D booster took off at 0413 GMT (12:13 a.m. EDT) Monday from the remote Jiuquan space base in the Gobi Desert in northwest China, according to China Great Wall Industry Corp., the government-owned company chartered to sell Chinese rockets and satellites on the global market. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 10)
SPACEX LAUNCH ADDS ANOTHER 10 SATELLITES TO IRIDIUM NEXT FLEET - Ten more satellites for Iridium’s upgraded voice and data communications fleet rode a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into a nearly 400-mile-high orbit from California’s Central Coast Monday. A few minutes after liftoff, the booster’s first stage made a pinpoint landing on an offshore platform in the Pacific Ocean, adding to SpaceX’s string of successful rocket recoveries for refurbishment and reuse. The 10 French-designed, U.S.-built satellites deployed one-by-one from the Falcon 9’s second stage around an hour after launch. Live video from the launcher showed the spacecraft releasing from a specially-designed carrier module on the upper stage. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 10)
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