RICHARD BRANSON WANTS TO BUILD 'SEXY' HOTELS IN SPACE - The billionaire entrepreneur isn't the first to talk about building hotels beyond Earth's atmosphere--but his vision comes with a distinctly Virgin flair.Richard Branson has always been up for adventure. The entrepreneur at one point held the record for the fastest transatlantic boat trip, a journey that nearly killed him. He tried to give his Virgin Cola brand a boost by running over 300 tons of Coke with a tank in the middle of Times Square. And his Virgin Galactic is moving closer to blasting tourists to the edge of the atmosphere. More (Source: International Business Times - Oct 6)
NASA IS SETTING A BUNCH OF FIRES IN SPACE ON PURPOSE - NASA is setting space on fire — literally — with a series of burns designed to help scientists learn more about how flames behave in a micro-gravity environment. The experiment, called Saffire, could help better inform security on future missions. "No space agency has had the opportunity to study a spacecraft fire of anything larger than an index card in long-term low gravity," David Urban, principal investigator of the Saffire experiment, said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters. More (Source: NBC News - Oct 6)
WITH NEW NOAA SATELLITE WILL COME ENHANCED WEATHER DATA - The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s new satellite is scheduled to launch in a month, providing an upgrade officials say will offer more frequent and better data than its predecessors. The satellite, GOES-R, will provide faster and more accurate weather forecasting and warnings, Stephen Volz, NOAA's assistant administrator for satellite and information services, told reporters Tuesday. He said its data will give local officials more time to make decisions on evacuating communities during extreme weather events, such as hurricanes. More (Source: FedScoop - Oct 5)
EERIE FACE SPOTTED ON SATELLITE IMAGE AS HURRICANE MATTHEW MAKES LANDFALL IN HAITI - Just as Hurricane Matthew was making landfall in Haiti, a sinister face appeared in a satellite image. In the infrared image, the storm actually took on the look of a skull. An eerie sight was spotted on a satellite image Tuesday morning as Hurricane Matthew moved over western Haiti: a face seemed to appear in the imagery of the tropical cyclone, and it looked almost as ominous as the storm itself. The infrared satellite image appeared to show the storm resembling a smiling skull, with Matthew's eye actually looking like an eye. The resemblance was first pointed out on Twitter by Stu Ostro, a senior meteorologist with The Weather Channel. More (Source: Weather.com - Oct 5)
ARIANE 5 LAUNCHED DELAYED TO WEDNESDAY - Arianespace officials have decided to push back liftoff of the Ariane 5 rocket for 24 hours until Wednesday. Arianespace chief executive Stephane Israel tweeted that the delay was caused by unfavorable high-altitude winds over the Guiana Space Center. The weather outlook for Wednesday looks favorable, with launch timed for 2030 GMT (4:30 p.m. EDT). Officials decided to delay the launch before loading cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants into the first and second stages of the Ariane 5 during today's countdown. More (Source: SpaceFlight Now - Oct 4)
SIMULATION SHOWS HOW SPACE JUNK SPREADS AFTER A SATELLITE BREAKS UP - Whether it's a satellite breaking up or the detritus of a launch, the whole space community agrees that space junk is a huge problem. After all, even a fleck of paint can make a noticeable dent in the International Space Station's windows. Tracking space debris is a lot easier if you know where to look, so US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) boffin Dr Liam Healy's done just that. In a video posted by the NRL, Healy's simulation shows the expanding cloud of debris from a disintegrating satellite. (It's interesting to observe that the spot where the disintegration starts gets the least amount of debris.) More (Source: The Register - Oct 4)
WAS MYSTERIOUS ‘MAN-MADE’ FIREBALL SPOTTED OVER BRITAIN THE WRECKAGE OF A RUNAWAY CHINESE SATELLITE? - A bright fireball scorched through British skies last night, prompting stargazers to claim it was the wreckage of a runaway Chinese satellite. The “unusual” meteor was travelling too slowly to be a space rock and appeared to have broken into two parts as it entered Earth’s atmosphere. The ‘unusual’ object was visible across southern Britain. More (Source: The Sun - Oct 4)
SEE HURRICANE MATTHEW LIVE FROM THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - Watch the view from space as massive Hurricane Matthew churns in the Caribbean sea before making landfall tonight. NOAA issued a Hurricane Watch for Jamaica, Haiti, several Cuban provinces and the Southeastern Bahamas, as those areas brace for flood rains, storm surges, mudslides and high winds. Matthew is expected to approach southwestern Haiti tonight--where 40 inches of rainfall is expected according to NOAA and NASA reports--then reach western Haiti and eastern Cuba tomorrow morning. The storm's slow track makes it particularly dangerous--although winds are sustained at 140 mph, its lumbering track north is moving at only 6 mph. More (Source: Popular Science - Oct 4)
ARIANE 5 TO SEND A DUO OF COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES INTO ORBIT - Arianespace is all set to conduct its eighth mission of the year, which will send two communications satellites into space atop the company’s workhorse Ariane 5 booster. Liftoff will take place from the Ariane Launch Complex № 3 (ELA-3) in Kourou, French Guiana. The 45-minute launch window starts at 5:30 p.m. local time (4:30 p.m. EDT; 20:30 GMT) on Tuesday, Oct. 4. The mission, designated VA231, will deliver GSAT-18 and Sky Muster II (also known as NBN-Co 1B) commsats into a geostationary orbit. The flight will last one hour and 22 minutes, with the Sky Munster II being released at 28-and-a-half minutes after launch and GSAT-18 being deployed some four minutes later. More (Source: SpaceFlight Insider - Oct 3)
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