ISRO TO LAUNCH SATELLITE DESIGNED BY IIT-B STUDENTS IN SEPTEMBER FROM SRIHARIKOTA - A team of students from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) have designed a microsatellite Pratham which will be launched into space by the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), at the end of this month, reported The Indian Express. The group of students involved in the project will visit Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh to test the satellite which will later be launched from there. The 10 kg satellite will be launched by Isro's four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) in September.    More
(Source: Firstpost - Sep 13)

LUNAR-ORBITING HAM RADIO SATELLITE COULD RESULT FROM NASA CUBE QUEST CHALLENGE - A NASA Cube Quest Challenge (CQC) team partnered with AMSAT-NA is among the five CQC teams to receive $20,000 each from the space agency as part of a competition that could lead to a lunar-orbiting Amateur Radio satellite. The Ragnarok Industries Nano-Satellite Company team, comprised of former NASA Goddard Space Flight Center PhD engineering interns, is designing the 6-unit (6U) Heimdallr CubeSat to test advanced propulsion and communication technologies for lunar and deep-space missions. AMSAT would develop the 5 GHz uplink/10 GHz downlink — the so-called “five and dime” paradigm — Phase 5 Amateur Radio transponder for the spacecraft, and AMSAT’s Ground Terminal initiative is supporting the effort. The five teams announced on September 9 scored highest in the first of four “ground tournaments” making up the initial phase of the $5 million CQC.    More
(Source: ARRL - Sep 13)

JEFF BEZOS UNVEILS DETAILS OF NEW BLUE ORIGIN ROCKET - Jeff Bezos, whose company Blue Origin is quietly developing a wide range of commercial launch vehicles, unveiled details of a new heavy-lift rocket Monday, a towering booster named after astronaut John Glenn that the Amazon founder says will be able to deliver crews and cargoes to low-Earth orbit and beyond. A two-stage version of the New Glenn booster will stand 270 feet tall, have a diameter of 23 feet and will generate 3.85 million pounds of thrust at liftoff using seven company-developed BE-4 engines burning liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen. The second stage will be powered by a single BE-4 optimized for use in vacuum. A three-stage variant will stand 313 feet tall, using a single BE-4 for the second stage and a single hydrogen-powered BE-3 engine in its third stage.   More
(Source: CBS News - Sep 13)

NASA’S SOLAR SATELLITE JUST FILMED A RARE 'DOUBLE ECLIPSE' - Astronomers working with NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft have witnessed an unusal 'double eclipse', where both Earth and the Moon cross in front of the Sun at the same time. While Earth blocks SDO’s view of the Sun once a day during its semi-annual 'eclipse season', witnessing a double eclipse is remarkably rare, and the good news is that NASA has the pictures to prove it. "In the SDO data, you can tell Earth and the Moon’s shadows apart by their edges: Earth’s is fuzzy, while the Moon’s is sharp and distinct," the team explains. "This is because Earth’s atmosphere absorbs some of the Sun’s light, creating an ill-defined edge. On the other hand, the Moon has no atmosphere, producing a crisp horizon."   More
(Source: ScienceAlert - Sep 11)

SPACEX LEADS PROBE INTO FALCON 9 ROCKET EXPLOSION - The investigation of a Falcon 9 rocket that exploded during ground tests last week highlights the primacy of industry self-regulation when commercial space operations run into trouble. Federal authorities aren’t leading the probe into what caused the fiery blast, which destroyed the roughly 220-foot unmanned rocket and the commercial telecommunications satellite sitting on top of it. Current law reserves that authority for the booster’s manufacturer, in this case billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s closely held Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX.    More
(Source: Wall Street Journal - Sep 10)

OSIRIS-REX PROBE LAUNCHED TO ASTEROID IN COMPELLING SEARCH FOR THE ORIGINS OF LIFE - Like reaching back in time to examine the conditions that existed in the ancient solar system, NASA has launched a robotic probe to visit Asteroid Bennu and return an unspoiled sample of the primitive body that may hold the seeds of life. “We’re going to an asteroid that represents the first building blocks of the planets in our solar system,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator with the University of Arizona. “The mission is driven by the return of pristine organic molecules from the early solar system. I’m really hopeful that we will get some unique material that isn’t in our meteorite collections because its probably friable and not easily surviving atmospheric passage, and that’s the reason we are going to protect it in our Sample Return Capsule.”   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 10)

AIRBUS DEFENCE AND SPACE’S PERúSAT-1 SATELLITE READY FOR TAKE-OFF - PerúSAT-1 is Peru’s first satellite Preparations complete for satellite launch scheduled for 16 September 2016 The PerúSAT-1 satellite, designed and built by Airbus Defence and Space, the world’s second largest space company and world leader in the export of Earth observation satellites, for the Peruvian Space Agency (CONIDA), is ready for launch from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, on 16 September 2016 03:43 CEST (20:43 Lima Time on 15 September 2016). Constructed in a record time of less than 24 months, PerúSAT-1 is based on the highly flexible, compact AstroBus-S platform.   More
(Source: Space Ref - Sep 9)

CHINA FAILS TO PUT A HIGH-TECH SATELLITE INTO ORBIT - In a rare setback, China on Thursday failed to put one of the most advanced satellites into orbit resulting in the loss of the satellite, a media report said. A Long March 4C rocket blasted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in Shanxi but aihangtian.com, a website run by Chinese professional astronautic experts and space enthusiasts, said it failed to insert its payload, the Gaofen-10 satellite into its designated orbit, in what would be the first such failure since 2013. There is no official announcement about it so far.   More
(Source: Times of India - Sep 9)

HOW SATELLITE IMAGING WILL REVOLUTIONIZE EVERYTHING FROM STOCK PICKING TO FARMING - When people say knowledge is power, they usually mean “money.” Even the great scientist and innovator Galileo Galilei knew that. In 1609, Galileo wowed Venice’s big cheeses by letting them use his telescope to see ships way out at sea, a good two hours before their owners would see them enter the port. The Venetians were impressed (they doubled Galileo’s salary and gave him lifetime tenure at the University of Padua) because they immediately saw the huge financial and military advantages offered by this visionary device. A few hundred years later, we are on the cusp of an equally radical transformation in how information is gathered, analyzed and monetized. And if we pay attention, we might even save the planet.   More
(Source: Newsweek - Sep 9)

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