My Best Wishes for the New Year for your aerospace activities
Satellite News
French military surveillance satellite CSO-2 launched by Soyuz rocket
An optical reconnaissance satellite for the French military took off atop a Soyuz launcher Tuesday, riding the Russian-made rocket from a tropical spaceport in South America into a 300-mile-high polar orbit to begin a 10-year mission surveying the globe.
NASA Approves Heliophysics Missions to Explore Sun, Earth’s Aurora
NASA has approved two heliophysics missions to explore the Sun and the system that drives space weather near Earth. Together, NASA’s contribution to the Extreme Ultraviolet High-Throughput Spectroscopic Telescope Epsilon Mission, or EUVST, and the Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer, or EZIE, will help us understand the Sun and Earth as an interconnected system. Understanding the physics that drive the solar wind and solar explosions – including solar flares and coronal mass ejections
Exploration News
Chinese mission returned nearly 4 pounds of lunar samples
Chinese officials say they plan to share a portion of the nearly 4 pounds of lunar material returned by the Chang’e 5 mission with other countries, but an allocation for U.S. scientists will hinge on a change in U.S. policy restricting cooperation between NASA and China’s space program.
Here’s the Asteroid Hayabusa2 is Going to be Visiting Next
Check out this image of asteroid 1998 KY26 from the Subaru Telescope. This small asteroid is the next target for Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft. Hayabusa2 was launched in 2014 to meet up with asteroid
Seven things to know about the NASA rover about to land on Mars
With only about 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) left to go in its 293-million-mile (471-million-kilometer) journey, NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover is nearing its new planetary home. The spacecraft has begun its approach to the Red Planet and in 43 days, on Feb. 18, 2021
Launcher News
Big News for SpaceX: Static Fire Today, Hop Test This Weekend?
SpaceX conducted another successful static fire test today in advance of a hop test that could be happening later this week!
India aims for reusable rockets, advanced propulsion in decadal spaceflight plan
India’s ISRO has outlined plans to develop reusable and heavy lift launchers, advanced propulsion and foster private space activities across the 2020s.
Chinese space enterprise gears up for record-breaking 40-plus launches in 2021
The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), the leading force of the country’s space industry, has released a plan for more than 40 space launches for 2021, a new high following the already busy and fruitful 2020. The construction of China’s space station, the key space mission in the year, will enter a crucial stage, according to the CASC.
NASA sets mid-January target for SLS hot fire test
NASA is moving forward with a crucial test-firing of the core stage of the first Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket as soon as Jan. 17 after engineers were satisfied with the results of a fueling test last month.
NewSpace News
Black Sky Receives Multi-Year Research Contract From IARPA
IARPA is responsible for leading research programs to overcome difficult challenges relevant to the U.S. intelligence community. BlackSky has been selected to aid in the development of IARPA’s Space-based Machine Automated Recognition Technique (SMART) Program.
GomSpace wins significant product order in North America
GomSpace has seen out 2020 with the signing of a contract with an existing customer within the North American market in the geo-intelligence industry for the delivery of a software defined radio mod …
AAC Clyde subsidiary Hyperion to fly CubeCAT laser terminal
AAC Clyde Space subsidiary Hyperion Technologies won a 150,000 euro contract to perform an in-orbit verification flight for CubeCAT, the company’s small satellite laser communications terminal.
Spacety shares first images from small C-band SAR satellite
Chinese startup Spacety released the first images from Hisea-1, a C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar, launched Dec. 22 on China’s new Long March 8 medium-lift rocket.
Hyperion’s Laser Comms Terminal To Fly Into Space In 2022
Ultra-high data rates for small satellites, free of licensing fees and year-long application processes – this will soon be reality. Thanks to the award to carry out an ESA ScyLight technology demonstration project supported by the Netherlands Ministry of Defense and Netherlands Space Office (NSO), a Dutch consortium consisting of TNO and Hyperion Technologies
SpinLaunch expands New Mexico test site
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SpinLaunch expects to perform the first suborbital tests of a prototype of its centrifugal system for launching small satellites later this year from New Mexico.
Space Safety News
White House releases planetary protection strategy
The White House released a national strategy for planetary protection Dec. 30, outlining new assessments to prevent terrestrial contamination of other worlds and vice versa.
DARPA satellites damaged at processing facility ahead of SpaceX launch
The two satellites are experiments known as Mandrake 1 and Mandrake 2 which DARPA describes as “risk reduction” flights to prove advanced technologies such as satellite constellation autonomy and optical inter-satellite links in advance of the actual deployment of Blackjack satellites.
Science & Technology News
Dealing with dust: A back-to-the-moon dilemma
The next chapter in the U.S. human exploration of the moon, the Artemis Project, will dispatch crews there for extended periods of time. But there’s one flash back message from the Apollo moonwalkers worth heeding: the place is a Disneyland of dust.
