POWERFUL NEW NOAA WEATHER SATELLITE SET FOR JUNE LAUNCH ATOP SPACEX FALCON HEAVY - It's the final countdown (I know you're singing along with me, don't deny it!). But why not, as the countdown clock now reads less than a month until NOAA's GOES-U satellite is slated to soar into space on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy Rocket. At the beginning of the year, the fourth satellite in NOAA's GOES-R series made the journey from its home in Colorado at Lockheed Martin to Florida to undergo processing ahead of the launch at the end of June. The mission's two-hour launch window opens on Tuesday, June 25 at 5:16 p.m. EDT (2116 GMT) and will liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center.    More
(Source: Space.com - Jun 1)

SENSOR ISSUE SCRUBS ROCKET LAB LAUNCH OF SHOEBOX-SIZED NASA CLIMATE SATELLITE - Rocket Lab's first attempt at launching the second of two cubesats for NASA's PREFIRE climate change mission ended in a scrub on Friday (May 31). An Electron rocket topped with the tiny satellite had been poised to lift off from Rocket Lab's New Zealand site at 10:46 p.m. EDT (0246 GMT or 2:46 p.m. local time on June 1), until an "out-of-family sensor reading" near the end of the launch window resulted in a scrub.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jun 1)

SPACEX LAUNCHES 14TH FALCON 9 ROCKET OF MAY USING BOOSTER FLYING FOR 14TH TIME - SpaceX continues to push the pace of its launch cadence as it completed another Falcon 9 rocket launch Friday nigh. The mission marked SpaceX’s 14th launch of the month, a new industry record for launch. The milestone adds to the record set earlier this week, when SpaceX launched its 13th Falcon 9 to send the European Space Agency’s EarthCARE satellite up to orbit. Liftoff of this latest mission, Starlink 6-64 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, happened at 10:37 p.m. EDT (0237 UTC).   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 1)

RUSSIAN SOYUZ ROCKET LAUNCHES TONS OF SUPPLIES TO ISS ON PROGRESS 88 CARGO SHIP - A Russian cargo ship launched toward the International Space Station early Thursday morning (May 30). The robotic Progress 88 freighter lifted off atop a Soyuz rocket from the Russia-run Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Thursday at 5:43 a.m. EDT (0943 GMT; 2:43 p.m. local time at Baikonur). Progress 88 is packed with about 3 tons of food, propellant, and other supplies for the astronauts living aboard the International Space Station (ISS).    More
(Source: Space.com - May 31)

LEOCLOUD TO SEND SPACE EDGE DATACENTER TO ISS - The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space, which manages the International Space Station National Laboratory, is offering LEOcloud an opportunity to demonstrate its Space Edge Infrastructure as a Service. Under a cooperative agreement announced May 29, LEOcloud will install its first-generation Space Edge virtualized micro datacenter on ISS.    More
(Source: SpaceNews - May 31)

FIRST EVER WOODEN SATELLITE TO HEAD TO SPACE - Scientists in Japan are hoping to launch the first ever wooden satellite into space after securing a spot on a SpaceX rocket launching later this year. A team from Kyoto University and the logging company Sumitomo Forestry announced this week that they had completed the construction of the 10-cubic centimetre LignoSat probe. Made from magnolia wood, the LignoSat is durable enough to withstand the hostile space environment, according to ground tests carried out by the researchers.   More
(Source: The Independent - May 31)

LAUNCH DATE SET FOR NASA’S SECOND PREFIRE SATELLITE - NASA and Rocket Lab are targeting Saturday, June 1, to launch the second CubeSat for the agency’s PREFIRE (Polar Radiant Energy in the Far-InfraRed Experiment) mission. The launch window opens at 3 p.m. NZST, (11 p.m. EDT, Friday, May 31). The first satellite successfully launched on 7:41 p.m. NZST May 25 (3:41 a.m. EDT) on an Electron rocket, called “Ready, Aim, PREFIRE,” from Launch Complex 1 in Māhia, New Zealand. Rocket Lab is now processing the second Electron rocket, called “PREFIRE and Ice,” for launch also from Launch Complex 1 in New Zealand.   More
(Source: Jet Propulsion Laboratory - NASA - May 30)

NOAA’S NEWEST GOES SATELLITE LAUNCHING DURING BUSY SEVERE WEATHER SEASON, SPACE WEATHER - NOAA's next forecasting tool is ready to liftoff amid an already active season for severe weather and a busy time for space weather producing Northern Lights as far south as the Florida launch site where the GOES-U satellite will blast off. The fourth and final spacecraft that is part of NOAA's Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites-R series is scheduled to launch on June 25 at 5:16 p.m. ET on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center launchpad 39A in Florida.    More
(Source: FOX Weather - May 30)

THE SATELLITES USING RADAR TO PEER AT EARTH IN MINUTE DETAIL - Clouds cover around two-thirds of the world at any one time, preventing conventional satellites from seeing much of the planet. But now a declassified technology known as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) can be installed on satellites to "see" the Earth's surface in the dark, through the clouds (or the smoke of wildfires), to provide a constant unobscured view of our planet, and show changes on the Earth's surface in great detail.   More
(Source: BBC - May 30)

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