AUSTRALIAN CUBESATS LOST IN SPACE FOUND AGAIN WITH HELP FROM DUTCH TELESCOPE, HAM RADIO OPERATORS - Imagine you've spent half a decade building satellites to study a little-known part of the Earth's atmosphere. They're the first Australian-built satellites to go into space for more than a decade. You watch them launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida with great fanfare. They're deployed from the International Space Station in May. Then … nothing. Radio silence. Your efforts appear to have resulted in space junk — invisible, unresponsive bricks hurtling at 27,000km/hr, 400km above the Earth's surface. But this is not a story about loss.   More
(Source: ABC Online - Jun 27)

SPACEX LAUNCHES AND LANDS SECOND FALCON 9 ROCKET IN TWO DAYS - Two days after launching a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida, SpaceX sent another mission into orbit Sunday from California’s Central Coast with 10 new satellites for Iridium’s voice and data relay network. Like Friday’s flight from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Falcon 9’s first stage plunged back through the atmosphere and made a propulsive vertical landing on a barge stationed several hundred miles downrange from the launch site.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 27)

SPACEX DRAGON AND FALCON 9 ROCKET PHOTOBOMB EACH OTHER'S SELFIES IN SPACE - It's official: SpaceX's rockets and spaceships have caught the selfie bug in the final frontier. When SpaceX launched a Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station this month, the spacecraft popped up in a "selfie" taken by the upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket that launched the ship into orbit. "Dragon photobombs stage 2 before heading to Space Station earlier this month," SpaceX representatives wrote in a Twitter post late Monday (June 19). In the photo, the Dragon spacecraft appears as a distant interloper in an otherwise picturesque scene of the Earth and Falcon 9 second stage engine on June 3.   More
(Source: Space.com - Jun 26)

SECRET RUSSIAN SATELLITE LAUNCHED FROM PLESETSK COSMODROME - A modified version of Russia’s Soyuz rocket launched Friday from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, a spaceport on the edge of the Russian Arctic, with a military satellite whose mission is shrouded in mystery. The Soyuz 2-1v rocket lifted off at 1804 GMT (3:04 p.m. EDT; 9:04 p.m. Moscow time) from Pad 4 at Site 43 at Plesetsk, a military-run spaceport around 500 miles (800 kilometers) north of Moscow in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region. Russia announced the successful launch in a statement posted on the Russian Defense Ministry’s website late Friday.   More
(Source: SpaceFligtht Now - Jun 25)

40TH FLIGHT OF INDIA’S PSLV DECLARED A SUCCESS - An Indian mapping satellite and 30 other payloads vaulted into space Friday aboard a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, arriving in an on-the-mark orbit more than 300 miles above Earth. Launching on its 40th flight, the PSLV rocketed away from the Satish Dhawan Space Center, a facility nestled on Sriharikota Island on India’s east coast, at 0359 GMT Friday (11:59 p.m. EDT Thursday). The 144-foot-tall (44-meter) launcher thundered into a mostly sunny sky over the launch base, where liftoff occurred at 9:29 a.m. local time. The four-stage rocket, boosted by six solid-fueled strap-on motors, appeared to soar flawlessly into orbit, first heading southeast, then turning south to steer around Sri Lanka and avoid flying over populated areas.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 25)

BULGARIA’S FIRST COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE HEAVED INTO ORBIT - Launching into a sun-splashed summertime afternoon sky, a previously-flown SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket climbed into orbit from Florida’s east coast Friday with a U.S.-built, Bulgarian-owned television broadcasting satellite. In a secondary objective, the Falcon 9’s first stage booster descended back to Earth and slowed down for a jarring touchdown on SpaceX’s drone ship holding position several hundred miles east of Cape Canaveral. The successful launch and landing is the first of two back-to-back Falcon 9 launches planned by SpaceX. A separate launch team is preparing a Falcon 9 rocket for liftoff Sunday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 24)

INDIAN ROCKET SET TO LAUNCH 31 SATELLITES - An Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, crowned with 31 satellites from 15 countries, is counting down to liftoff early Friday from an island spaceport on the country’s east coast. Carrying an Indian mapping satellite, an agricultural research craft built by Indian university students, and 29 secondary payloads, the 144-foot-tall (44-meter) PSLV will blast off from the First Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Center at 0359 GMT Friday (11:59 p.m. EDT Thursday).   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 23)

DEAD SATELLITES COULD BE BLASTED OUT OF ORBIT WITH POWERFUL MAGNETIC BEAMS - One scientist is working on a novel solution for knocking dead, broken satellites out of orbit so they can't cause any damage to other spacecraft: a magnetic grappling beam. The same technology could also be used to keep groups of new satellites in orbit, according to experts, which might one day enable us to combine packs of satellites flying in formation to create giant telescopes.   More
(Source: ScienceAlert - Jun 22)

LAUNCH OF MILITARY’S NEW SPACE-BASED SATELLITE TRACKER DELAYED TWO MONTHS - The launch from Cape Canaveral of a small U.S. military satellite built to track objects in geosynchronous orbit has been delayed from mid-July until September, an Air Force spokesperson said. The Air Force did not disclose a reason for the two-month delay, or a new target launch date for the SensorSat mission. The spokesperson said the launch is now scheduled some time between the end of August and mid-September.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 22)

Previous Next