ACKNOWLEDGING SOME OVERLOOKED SATELLITES - Since the first launches into space, rockets and parts of rockets have been crashing back to Earth. Fortunately much of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, or inhospitable mountains, or deserts, or other places that are sparsely populated. Still, there is at least one documented case of a person being struck by a piece of a reentering object from space. Reentries have been interesting to me ever since very early in my career, when I helped predict the impact zone for the Skylab space station, very large pieces of which fell onto Australia in 1979. More (Source: The Space Review - Jun 13)
SOYUZ BOOSTER ROLLS OUT FOR LAUNCH WITH SPACE STATION CARGO FREIGHTER - Russian launch crews stood up a Soyuz rocket Sunday on its launch mount in Kazakhstan for a scheduled liftoff Wednesday with approximately 5,500 pounds (2,500 kilograms) of supplies, experiments, fuel and several small satellites to be released by spacewalking cosmonauts at the International Space Station later this year. The Soyuz-2.1a rocket emerged from an assembly building at the Baikonur Cosmodrome around sunrise Sunday, then trekked on a specialized train car to Launch Pad No. 31 at the historic space base, where technicians hydraulically hoisted the booster vertical. Access platforms raised into position around the Soyuz rocket for final launch preparations. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 12)
HOW TO WATCH NASA BROADCAST RUSSIA’S PROGRESS 67 SPACECRAFT LAUNCHING AND DOCKING ON THE ISS - The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will provide live video coverage of the launch and docking of a large Russian cargo spacecraft at the International Space Station next week, the agency announced on its website. The spacecraft will carry a delivery of almost three tons of food, fuel and supplies to the station during what NASA says is "one of the busiest times of vehicle traffic in history." The broadcast will begin early in the morning on Wednesday, June 14. More (Source: Newsweek - Jun 11)
WATCH LIVE SUNDAY @ 9:04 PM ET: NASA LAUNCHING ROCKET TO CREATE ARTIFICIAL CLOUDS - A small NASA rocket will launch to create colorful artificial clouds Sunday night (June 11) at 9:04 p.m. EDT (0104 GMT on Monday), and you can watch all the action live here at Space.com. Coverage begins at 8:30 p.m. EDT (0030 GMT Monday). You can also watch the liftoff, which will take place from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, at the Wallops Ustream site: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasa-tv-wallops. "The window for a NASA Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket launch to test a new ampoule ejection system designed to support studies of the ionosphere and aurora opens June 11 and runs through June 18. More (Source: Space.com - Jun 11)
SES SAYS IT COULD BUILD THE WORLD’S MOST POWERFUL SATELLITE, BUT WON’T - Global fleet operator SES says it could join the race to build the world’s highest-throughput satellites if it wanted to, but doesn’t believe such spacecraft will be effective at serving customers. “SES is the largest satellite operator in the world today,” Andrew Ruszkowski, vice president of SES’s strategic initiatives in mobility, said June 8 at the Global Connected Aircraft Summit here. “If we wanted to, we could launch by far the largest-capacity satellite in the world. However, we have concluded that doesn’t make sense for our customers, nor for our business.” More (Source: SpaceNews - Jun 10)
US SPOOK-SAT BUZZED THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - For a little while earlier this month, astronauts on the International Space Station had a spooky companion: a spy satellite that circled just outside its “danger zone”. Dutch satellite-watcher Marco Langbroek (whose day job is at Leiden University) analysed the orbit of USA 276, a spy satellite owned by the US National Reconnaissance Office and hoisted aboard the May 1 SpaceX mission. It's something of a vindication for the (now) amateur astronomer, since in late May he speculated that a close approach was feasible. More (Source: The Register - Jun 9)
SPACEX WANTS TO LAUNCH THOUSANDS OF SATELLITES. WHAT ON EARTH FOR? - SpaceX has always had piecolony-in-the-sky dreams, founded as it was with the “ultimate goal of enabling people to live on other planets." But the company also intends to better life on Earth by launching 11,943 satellites that will give fast internet access to the globe. According to details in November 2016 and March 2017 filings with the FCC, SpaceX’s idea is to use those satellites to make a truly World Wide Web, by beaming internet access to everyone, including the 57 percent of the global population that doesn't access the online world. More (Source: WIRED - Jun 9)
PROTON ROCKET SUCCESSFULLY RETURNS TO FLIGHT AFTER YEAR-LONG GROUNDING - An EchoStar communications satellite designed to link Europeans with voice and broadband data services rode into orbit on top of a Russian Proton rocket Thursday, deploying into an on-target orbit after nine hours of maneuvers by the launcher’s Breeze M upper stage. The 191-foot-tall (58-meter) Proton/Breeze M rocket took off at 0345:47 GMT Thursday (11:45:47 p.m. EDT Wednesday) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, heading to the east from the historic Central Asia launch base into partly sunny skies. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Jun 9)
IRIDIUM NEXT SATELLITES PREP FOR SECOND LAUNCH - ridium Communications announced that all 10 Iridium Next satellites have arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and are being processed for the second launch. Scheduled for June 25 at 1:25 pm PDT (20:25 UTC), this launch continues the deployment cadence for the additional six SpaceX launches of Iridium Next satellites. More (Source: Satellite Today - Jun 8)
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