ISS ROUNDUP: CYGNUS NG-20, AXIOM MISSION 3, AND PROGRESS MS-26 - This month, the International Space Station (ISS) has seen a flurry of activity, from experiments to vehicle arrivals and departures. Multiple resupply missions by Cygnus and Progress have kept the crew of Expedition 70 healthy onboard the Station. Meanwhile, a private mission from Axiom headed back to Earth with the first-ever all-European commercial crew, and SpaceX Crew-8 prepares to launch to the ISS in the coming days.   More
(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Mar 4)

NASA, SPACEX SCRUB CREW-8 ASTRONAUT MISSION TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION DUE TO POOR WEATHER - Update 8:00 p.m. EST: NASA and SpaceX are standing down from the launch due to high winds along the ascent corridor. For the second time this year, SpaceX is preparing to send a quartet of people up to the International Space Station. Its Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon Endeavour spacecraft are standing by at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. However, they’ll have to wait another day given that weather along the ascent corridor did not permit a launch late Saturday night.   More
(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Mar 3)

NASA CANCELS OSAM-1 SATELLITE SERVICING TECHNOLOGY MISSION - NASA has canceled a multibillion-dollar project to demonstrate satellite servicing technologies that had suffered extensive delays and cost overruns. In a brief statement March 1, NASA announced it was ending the On-Orbit Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (OSAM) 1 mission. OSAM-1 was being developed to refuel the Landsat 7 spacecraft and then perform the in-orbit assembly of a Ka-band satellite antenna. NASA said it was canceling OSAM-1 “due to continued technical, cost, and schedule challenges, and a broader community evolution away from refueling unprepared spacecraft, which has led to a lack of a committed partner.”   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Mar 2)

CHINA LAUNCHES FIRST HIGH ORBIT INTERNET SATELLITE - China launched the first of a new “high orbit” internet satellite series Thursday, apparently to provide internet services to China and surrounding areas. A Long March 3B/G rocket lifted off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwestern China at 8:03 a.m. Eastern (1303 UTC) Feb. 29. The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC) announced launch success within an hour of liftoff. CASC’s statement revealed the previously undisclosed payload to be High orbit satellite internet-01 (Weixing Hulianwan Gaogui-01).   More
(Source: SpaceNews - Mar 1)

RUSSIAN ROCKET SUCCESSFULLY PUTS IRANIAN SATELLITE INTO ORBIT - A Russian rocket on Thursday successfully put an Iranian satellite into orbit, a launch that underlined increasingly close cooperation between Moscow and Tehran. Russia's state-run Roscosmos corporation said that a Soyuz rocket blasted off from the Vostochny launch facility in the country's far east to carry the Iranian satellite and 18 Russian satellites into orbit.   More
(Source: Yahoo News - Mar 1)

NEAR MISS! NASA SATELLITE, DEAD RUSSIAN SPACECRAFT ZOOM PAST EACH OTHER IN ORBIT - A NASA satellite almost got clobbered high above Earth this morning (Feb. 28). At 1:34 a.m. EST (0634 GMT), according to agency officials, the dead Russian spy satellite Cosmos 2221 zoomed uncomfortably close to a NASA craft dubbed TIMED that has been studying Earth's atmosphere since 2001. "While the two non-maneuverable satellites will approach each other again, this was their closest pass in the current predicted orbit determinations, as they are gradually moving apart in altitude," NASA officials wrote in an update today.   More
(Source: Space.com - Feb 29)

FIRST NORTH KOREA SPY SATELLITE IS ‘ALIVE’ AND BEING CONTROLLED, EXPERTS SAY - North Korea’s first spy satellite is “alive”, space experts have said, after detecting changes in its orbit that suggested Pyongyang was successfully controlling the spacecraft – although its capabilities remain unknown. After two fiery failures, North Korea successfully launched the Malligyong-1 satellite into orbit in November. Pyongyang’s state media claimed it has photographed sensitive military and political sites in South Korea, the US and elsewhere, but has not released any imagery. Independent radio trackers have not detected signals from the satellite.   More
(Source: The Guardian - Feb 29)

INDIA TO HAVE OWN SPACE STATION BY 2035, COUNTRY WILL GO TO MOON AGAIN, SAYS PM MODI - After the the names of the astronauts of the Gaganyaan mission were announced in Thiruvananthapuram on February 27, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said India will have its own space station by 2035. Addressing ISRO scientists at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) here, Mr. Modi said India will once again go to the Moon and bring back samples from the lunar surface. ISRO also has Venus on its radar, the Prime Minister said.    More
(Source: The Hindu - Feb 29)

RUSSIA ACKNOWLEDGES CONTINUING AIR LEAK FROM ITS SEGMENT OF SPACE STATION - Russian space officials have acknowledged a continuing air leak from the Russian segment of the International Space Station, but said it poses no danger to its crew. The Roscosmos state corporation said that specialists were monitoring the leak and the crew “regularly conducts work to locate and fix possible spots of the leak”. “There is no threat to the crew or the station itself,” it said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.   More
(Source: The Guardian - Feb 29)

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