

U.K. TO REVISE STRATEGY FOR SATELLITE NAVIGATION SYSTEM - The British government, seeking a replacement for the Galileo satellite navigation system, said it will consider alternatives to an original plan to develop its own satellite constellation. In a Sept. 24 statement, the British government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said an ongoing study to examine the feasibility of a U.K. Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) will shift to one that will look at “new and alternative ways” of providing those services. More

(Source: SpaceNews - Sep 26)

NEW SENTINEL-6 SEA LEVEL SATELLITE ARRIVES AT CALIFORNIA LAUNCH SITE - The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich spacecraft will launch from the U.S. West Coast aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in November. The world’s latest ocean-monitoring satellite has arrived at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Central California to be prepared for its November 10 launch. The product of a historic U.S.-European partnership, the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich spacecraft touched down at Vandenberg in an Antonov 124 aircraft at around 10:40 a.m. PDT (1:40 p.m. EDT) on September 24 after a two-day journey from an IABG engineering facility near Munich, Germany. More

(Source: SciTechDaily - Sep 26)

DELTA 4-HEAVY LAUNCH DELAYED BY GROUND SYSTEM ISSUE - United Launch Alliance said Friday that the next launch attempt for its Delta 4-Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral with a top secret U.S. government spy satellite will be delayed to early Sunday to address a problem with the launch pad’s swing arm retraction system. The mission was previously set for liftoff early Saturday. The launch time Sunday is set for 12:10 a.m. EDT (0410 GMT). More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 26)

MORE LEAK CHECKS AS CREW SPENDS WEEKEND IN RUSSIAN SEGMENT - As part of ongoing work to isolate the source of a slight increase above the standard cabin air leak rate, the Expedition 63 crew will once again spend the weekend inside the station’s Russian segment. All the space station hatches will be closed this weekend so mission controllers can again monitor the air pressure in each module with the goal of localizing the source of the increased rate. The test presents no safety concern for the crew. Commander Chris Cassidy and his crewmates Ivan Vagner and Anatoly Ivanishin will stay in the Zvezda service module from Friday night into Monday morning. More

(Source: NASA - Sep 26)

ASTRONAUTS TAKE SHELTER AS SPACE STATION DODGES ORBITAL JUNK - The International Space Station just dodged a fast-moving hunk of orbiting junk. Controllers maneuvered the station away from a potential collision with a piece of debris today (Sept. 22) at 5:19 p.m. EDT (2119 GMT). They did so by firing the thrusters on a Russian Progress cargo spacecraft that's docked to the orbiting lab's Zvezda service module, NASA officials said in an update today. More

(Source: Space.com - Sep 25)

AIR FORCE TO LAUNCH NEW 'HARDENED' WAR SATELLITE BY 2022 - What if Air Force fighters and bombers were successfully attacking an enemy with absolute precision and exact targeting data when all of a sudden their GPS signals disappeared or got hacked? What if that threw off the guided missiles and ground-coordinates being assembled on the ground by friendly Joint Tactical Air Controllers? In a matter of minutes, attacks could be sent off-target, interrupted or simply made no longer accurate. Army-Air Force multi-domain collaboration might collapse. More

(Source: Fox News - Sep 25)

DELTA 4-HEAVY CLEARED FOR LIFTOFF AFTER LAUNCH READINESS REVIEW - United Launch Alliance gave the go-ahead Thursday to continue preparations for a third try to send aloft a Delta 4-Heavy rocket and a top secret U.S. government spy satellite from Cape Canaveral early Saturday, the first of two missions poised for liftoff from Florida’s Space Coast this weekend. ULA convened a Launch Readiness Review on Thursday morning to assess the status of launch preparations, the Delta 4-Heavy rocket, the rocket’s clandestine payload, and ground systems. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 25)

VENERABLE AO-7 SATELLITE APPROACHING A RETURN TO FULL SOLAR ILLUMINATION - AMSAT-OSCAR 7 (AO-7), the oldest amateur radio satellite still in operation, is nearing a return to full illumination by the sun, which should take place around September 25 and continue until around December 26. AMSAT’s vice president of operations Drew Glasbrenner, KO4MA, says that during this period, AO-7 likely will switch between modes A (2 meters up/10 meters down) and B (70 centimeters up/2 meters down) every 24 hours. More

(Source: ARRL - Sep 24)

TRACKING DESERT LOCUSTS WITH SATELLITE SERVICES - This year brought a locust crisis to Eastern Africa, threatening food supplies in an already troubled time. In this article, EUMETSAT catches up with the activities of the IGAD Climate Prediction & Applications Centre (ICPAC), a climate centre tracking the locusts in East Africa, and see how EUMETSAT’s satellites and data helped mitigate this crisis. Desert locust swarms are a pestilence of biblical proportion. Coming in waves ever since ancient times, they ravage crops that supply food to communities and livestock – in only one day, a small swarm can consume the food of 35,000 people. More

(Source: Space in Africa - Sep 23)

LONG MARCH 4B LAUNCHES NEW OCEAN OBSERVATION SATELLITE - China launched a new ocean observation satellite from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center on Monday. Launch of the Haiyang-2C took place at 05:40 UTC under the power of a Long March-4B (Chang Zheng-4B) rocket. The Haiyang-2 program represents the second generation of ocean observation and monitorization satellites, with the program being approved by the China National Space Administration in February 2007, for measurement of ocean dynamic and environmental parameters in the microwave region (permitting all-weather observations). More

(Source: NASASpaceFlight.com - Sep 22)

SATELLITE ACHIEVES SHARP-EYED VIEW OF METHANE - There is a powerful new satellite in the sky to monitor emissions of methane (CH4), one of the key gases driving human-induced climate change. Known as Iris, the spacecraft can map plumes of CH4 in the atmosphere down to a resolution of just 25m. This makes it possible to identify individual sources, such as specific oil and gas facilities. Iris was launched by the Montreal, Canada-based GHGSat company on 2 September. More

(Source: BBC News - Sep 22)

ELON MUSK’S SPACEX SATELLITES CLUTTER THE SKIES, FRUSTRATING ASTRONOMERS - Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s hundreds of satellites cluttering up the galaxy. A plethora of massive internet satellites launched by eco-friendly billionaire Elon Musk are swirling overhead — and astronomers are trying mightily to figure out how to deal with the sun’s glaring reflection off those man-made orbiters. “There’s almost no place in the sky that you won’t see a satellite going by,” the American Astronomical Society’s Rick Feinberg told The Post. More

(Source: New York Post - Sep 20)

NEXT SPACEX LAUNCH WILL WAIT FOR IMPROVED OCEAN CONDITIONS - The launch of SpaceX’s next 60 Starlink satellites will wait for better weather and sea conditions after currents were too strong for the company’s rocket landing platform to hold position in the Atlantic Ocean for a launch attempt Thursday. After scrubbing Thursday’s launch attempt, SpaceX initially said it might try again to launch the mission Friday afternoon. More

(Source: SpaceFlight Now - Sep 19)

SPACEX DELAYS NEXT STARLINK SATELLITE FLEET LAUNCH DUE TO ROCKET 'RECOVERY ISSUE' - SpaceX called off the launch of a new fleet of Starlink internet satellites on Thursday (Feb. 17) due to a "recovery issue" related to the mission's Falcon 9 rocket. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was scheduled to launch 60 new Starlink satellites for the company's growing megaconstellation at 2:19 p.m. EDT (1819 GMT) Thursday from Pad 39A of NASA's historic Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But 15 minutes before the planned liftoff, SpaceX scrubbed the mission. More

(Source: Space.com - Sep 18)

MILITARY COMMANDERS COULD USE MORE SATELLITES FOR TACTICAL SURVEILLANCE - Pacific theater Air Force commander Gen. Kenneth Wilsbach said one of the items on his wish list are low-orbiting surveillance satellites to help track targets on the ground, at sea and in the air. “Yes, I am absolutely in favor of more space-based ISR,” said Wilsbach, the commander of Pacific Air Forces at U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. ISR is the military abbreviation for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. More

(Source: SpaceNews - Sep 18)

TURKEY TO LAUNCH TüRKSAT 5A SATELLITE INTO SPACE ON NOV. 30 - Turkey will launch the Türksat 5A satellite into space on Nov. 30, Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Adil Karaismailoğlu said Wednesday. Türksat 5A is a broadcast satellite that will operate in the Ku band at the 31 degrees east longitude slot in geostationary orbit, covering Turkey, the Middle East, Europe and large regions of Africa. It will provide television services and improve broadband data networks. It reportedly has a launch mass of 3,500 kilograms (7,716 pounds) and electrical power of 12 kilowatts. More

(Source: Daily Sabah - Sep 17)

SATELLITES WATCH HURRICANE SALLY MAKE LANDFALL IN ALABAMA - Hurricane Sally made landfall in Alabama as a Category 2 storm early Wednesday morning (Sept. 16) as satellites monitored the storm from space. Sally landed near Gulf Shores, Alabama, at about 5:45 a.m. EDT (0945 GMT), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which caught sight of the landfall using the GOES-East satellite. More

(Source: Space.com - Sep 17)

MILITARY EARLY WARNING SATELLITES TO BEGIN MIGRATION TO NEW GROUND SYSTEM - Lockheed Martin announced Sept. 16 it received a $51.2 million contract to begin integrating U.S. missile warning satellites with a new ground system that is being developed to command and control all military satellites in the future. Under the contract from the U.S. Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, Lockheed Martin will start the process of migrating a Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) geosynchronous satellite... More

(Source: SpaceNews - Sep 17)

SPACE FORCE SET TO RECEIVE SIXTH ANTI-JAMMING SATELLITE BY END OF YEAR - The sixth Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite completed its On-Orbit Test (OOT) period Aug. 27, clearing the way for it to be transferred to the U.S. Space Force by the end of 2020, primary contractor Lockheed Martin announced Sept. 15. More

(Source: C4ISRNet - Sep 17)

CHINA LAUNCHES 9 SATELLITES INTO SPACE FROM OCEAN PLATFORM - China launched a Long March 11 rocket from an ocean platform in the Yellow Sea early Tuesday (Sept. 15), successfully sending nine satellites into orbit. The launch took place at 09:23 local time (01:23 GMT/9:23 p.m. Eastern Monday) from a 524-feet-long (159.6 meters) launch platform named De Bo 3. The mission is China's second ocean-based launch, following a first Long March 11 sea launch in June 2019. It is the first time however that China has used new seaport facilities at Haiyang in eastern China. More

(Source: Space.com - Sep 16) Older news