ROBERT BIGELOW IS BUILDING HOTELS IN SPACE (NO, REALLY) - Robert Bigelow built his first hotel in Las Vegas, before moving to Texas, and then the rest of the Southwestern United states. Now, the founder of the Budget Suites of America chain is expanding his empire further—his next extended stay rental property is currently attached to the International Space Station. Bigelow first started his space company, Bigelow Aerospace, in 1999 to develop habitats for use as research labs for corporations and countries without space programs, housing for missions to Mars, or even as hotels for tourists on the final frontier. In April the longtime space buff’s dream took a giant leap forward with the successful delivery of BEAM, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, to the space station (ISS).   More
(Source: Fortune - May 20)

THIS CRAZY PHOTO FROM THE SPACE STATION HELPS PUT CANADA’S WILDFIRE IN PERSPECTIVE - The Fort McMurray wildfire has captured devastation on a scale most of us can't comprehend. Images from the ground and satellites have helped quantify the destruction, but this shot from the International Space Station somehow ties the scale of the destruction together much more clearly. The photo was taken by an Expedition 67 crew member on May 14th, from 240 miles away. (Yes, the astronauts have some pretty sweet cameras.) The lower-angle shot shows a huge plume of smoke engulfing Fort McMurray -- the town isn't really visible, the smoke is so dense.   More
(Source: Yahoo News - May 20)

SENTINEL SATELLITE PICTURES A 'CLEAR SKIES' AFRICA - This is not a natural state, of course; there is always a weather system bubbling up somewhere. But if you have access to a lot of images acquired over the course of several months, it becomes possible to construct a mosaic. This one was produced from observations made by the EU's new Sentinel-2a satellite, which is now routinely mapping Planet Earth. It is a powerful capability. Sensitive across 13 spectral bands (colours) and able to see details as small as 10m across - the spacecraft's camera "carpet maps" the land surface beneath it. Every strip is 290km wide.   More
(Source: BBC News - May 19)

NASA NODES CUBESATS DEPLOYED FROM INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION - After a five-month stay aboard the International Space Station, NASA's two Nodes satellites were deployed on May 16 from the NanoRacks platform and into low-Earth orbit to begin their much anticipated technology demonstration. These tiny satellites have dimensions of only four by four by six inches. The ground controllers for the Nodes mission received confirmation that both satellites are transmitting and are in good health when they passed over the tracking station for the first time, soon after deployment. The first transmission of science data is expected by May 18.   More
(Source: Space Ref - May 19)

SCHOOL KIDS LAUNCH OUT OF THIS WORLD SCIENCE PROJECT - Students at an elementary school in Virginia are very excited, and the reason for their excitement is out of this world -- a tiny satellite being launched Monday by astronauts at the International Space Station Thirteen-year-old Rebecca el Choueiry helped build the satellite. "I think it's awesome!" she said. "I'm really excited that's it's finally up in space." And now St. Thomas More Cathedral School in Arlington is the first grade school in the nation to put a satellite in orbit.   More
(Source: CBS News - May 18)

ÑUSAT-1 SSB/CW TRANSPONDER SATELLITE - The launch of ÑUSAT-1, the second AMSAT ARGENTINA amateur satellite on May 30, will mark an extraordinary event for our Institution and fostering of hope for satellite community. As we quoted when the announcement of the launching of this experiment, Amsat Argentina has been working for several years to keep alive the dream of many Argentine amateurs to get back into Space with their own satellite as a follow-on of the legendary 1990’s LUSAT-1, reaping the benefits of Technological advancement of our days.   More
(Source: AMSAT-UK - May 18)

SATELLITE TECHNOLOGY TELLS US EXACTLY HOW WELL A BUSINESS PERFORMS - Driving past your neighbor’s house on a weekend, you see a bunch of cars parked outside and think: “Oh, they have a lot of guests. They must be having a party.” Or when the opposite is true — when there are no cars parked outside on a holiday and you think: “Poor people, they are all alone.” Counting cars. That’s what a Midtown Manhattan company called RS Metrics does for a living. Only it doesn’t drive by shopping malls or office complexes — or your neighbor’s house — to see how many cars are parked outside.   More
(Source: New York Post - May 17)

THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION HAS MADE ITS 100,000TH ORBIT OF EARTH, A DISTANCE EQUIVALENT TO 10 R - It's 100,000 laps around Earth and counting for the International Space Station. The space station reached the orbital milestone — 17 ½ years in the making — Monday morning. NASA said these 100,000 orbits are akin to traveling more than 2.6 billion miles. That's equivalent to 10 round trips to Mars, or almost one way to Neptune. Each orbit takes about 90 minutes; 16 orbits comprise a station day. Astronauts have been living continuously aboard the 250-mile-high complex since 2000. Construction began two years before that. Since then, 222 people have lived or visited there, the vast majority of them— 189 — men, according to NASA. Altogether, there have been 47 permanent crews representing the U.S., Russian, Canadian, Japanese and European space agencies.   More
(Source: U.S. News & World Report - May 17)

CHINESE ROCKET LOFTS GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE SATELLITE - A Long March 2D booster fired into space Sunday from a remote Chinese spaceport in the Gobi Desert, delivering a military spy satellite to a 640-kilometer-high (400-mile) perch in polar orbit. The two-stage Long March 2D rocket took off at 0243 GMT Sunday (10:43 p.m. EDT Saturday) from the Jiuquan launch center in northwest China’s Inner Mongolia province. The liftoff occurred at 10:43 a.m. Beijing time, according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency. The 41-meter (134-foot-tall) liquid-fueled rocket veered south from Jiuquan to put its payload into a sun-synchronous orbit. Tracking data released by the U.S. military indicated the spacecraft reached an orbit with an apogee, or high point, of about 653 kilometers (405 miles), and a low point, or perigee of 625 kilometers (388 miles).   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - May 16)

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