RUSSIA TO OPERATE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION UNTIL 2024 - The International Space Station cost an estimated $ 100 billion with the help of five different space agencies and 26 countries. For all the high-tech hurdles scientists had to clear, the International Space Station does have a shelf life. CCTV America’s Sean Callebs reports. “Right now, the space station is slated for operation through 2024, what happens then, we are not sure,” former U.S. NASA Astronaut Leroy Chiao said. Chiao has spent about 230 days on the ISS as commander.   More
(Source: CCTV-America - Sep 17)

ESA'S GAIA SATELLITE MAPPED A BILLION STARS IN THE MILKY WAY - The European Space Agency launched the Gaia satellite and its one-billion-pixel camera to space back in 2013. Gaia has been mapping the Milky Way ever since, and now the ESA has released a 3D map featuring over a billion stars -- we've never seen 400 million of those before -- based on the data it collected from July 2014 to September 2015. As you can see above, it shows how dense a billion stars look. Don't dwell on those weird lines cocooning the structure too much: they're merely artefacts from the way the satellite scans the galaxy. Team member Timo Prusti said this demonstrates that "it is possible to handle the analysis of a billion stars."    More
(Source: Engadget - Sep 16)

CHINA TO LAUNCH WORLD’S FIRST ‘COLD’ ATOMIC CLOCK IN SPACE ... AND IT’LL STAY ACCURATE FOR A BILLION - The clock is ticking for the world’s most accurate working time piece, the NIST-F2 atomic clock operated by America’s National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado. And fittingly, the challenge is coming from the country that invented the mechanical clock almost 1,300 years ago – China. The US clock is a large, heavy machine, standing more than 2.5 metres high, with support facilities filling an entire room, but it is so accurate that it would lose just one second in 300 million years.   More
(Source: South China Morning Post - Sep 16)

CHINA’S TIANGONG 2 SPACE LAB SUCCESSFULLY BLASTS OFF - The next stepping stone in China’s human spaceflight program launched Thursday, delivering a destination and living quarters to orbit for two astronauts preparing for liftoff next month on a planned 33-day expedition, the country’s longest space mission to date. The Tiangong 2 space lab rode a Long March 2F launcher into orbit from the Jiuquan space center in northwestern China’s Gobi Desert. In live video broadcast from Jiuquan by Chinese state television, access platforms and electrical umbilical arms swung away from the 170-foot-tall (52-meter) Long March 2F T2 launcher in the final minutes of the countdown, and eight engines ignited with a puff of orange exhaust at 1404 GMT (10:04 a.m. EDT; 10:04 p.m. Beijing time) Thursday.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 15)

LOCKHEED MARTIN SAYS FIRST GPS 3 SATELLITE DELAYED UNTIL DECEMBER - Lockheed Martin has pushed back the delivery of the first satellite in the U.S. Air Force’s next generation of positioning, navigation and timing satellites by four months after discovering a problem with the navigation payload, the company said Sept. 14. Lockheed Martin officials had said in March that they had planned to deliver the first of the GPS-3 satellites to the Air Force in August, but now expect the satellite to be available in December. While the Air Force previously has said the satellite would launch no earlier than 2017, some industry officials expect that a 2018 launch is more likely especially as the Pentagon absorbs delays with the next-generation GPS ground system known as the Operational Control Segment.   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Sep 15)

CHINA PLANS TO LAUNCH A LIVE-IN SPACE LAB TOMORROW - In 2011, Congress ruled that China is not allowed on the International Space Station because of "national security" concerns. Undeterred, the People's Republic decided to build its own. Tiangong-1, which launched in 2011, was the first step in that direction. The unmanned prototype served as a practice for docking spacecraft, and played host to a short manned mission. Now China's ready for part 2: sending astronauts to live in space for the longer term.   More
(Source: Popular Science - Sep 15)

IDLED BY RANGE FACILITY REWORK FOR MONTHS, VANDENBERG READY TO LAUNCH AGAIN FRIDAY - Resuming space launches from the U.S. Western Range at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California after a half-year infrastructure outage, an Atlas 5 rocket will boost a commercial Earth-imaging bird into orbit on Friday. Using the same United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 built and stacked on the pad for NASA’s now-delayed Mars InSight lander that was supposed to head for the Red Planet in March, the privately-owned and operated WorldView 4 spacecraft will ride the booster to a sun-synchronous polar orbit above Earth. Liftoff of the rocket, designated AV-062, is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. local (2:30 p.m. EDT; 1830 GMT) from Space Launch Complex 3-East on South Base. The available launch window extends 14 minutes.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 15)

OFEK 11 SATELLITE LAUNCHED INTO SPACE, EXPERIENCES TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES - Approximately two weeks following the failure of the Amos 6 satellite, which exploded on the ground in Cape Canaveral, Israel Aerospace industries and the Ministry of Defense successfully launched the Ofek 11 satellite into space on Tuesday from Palmachim Airbase near Rishon LeZion. However, it turned out later in the day that the satellite's systems may be malfunctioning. "There are indications according to which things aren't working as we expected, and so we are trying to stabilize (the satellite). There are things that make us worried. The satellite orbits the earth once every hour and a half. It's possible that some systems are not in the correct condition," officials told the press Tuesday.   More
(Source: Ynetnews - Sep 14)

WHY EXPLODING ROCKETS ARE NOT ALWAYS A BAD THING - Let's face it: Spaceflight is inherently risky, and getting off the ground is one of the most dangerous phases of any mission. A rocket launch is, by definition, one long, controlled explosion, with the energetic results of that explosion streaming out of the bottom-mounted engines and propelling the vehicle into space. It's when that controlled explosion, or its fuel source, becomes uncontrolled that things get shaky. On the morning of Sept. 1, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blew up on a launchpad at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, two days before its scheduled launch date. (Actually, according to a tweet from SpaceX's CEO, Elon Musk, it was not an explosion but a "fast fire.")   More
(Source: Space.com - Sep 14)

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