Satellite News
Telesat close to completing Lightspeed funding
Telesat is close to securing all the funds it needs for Lightspeed, after the Canadian government said it would inject more than a billion dollars into the low Earth orbit constellation.
Exploration News
Sights and sounds of a Venus flyby
ESA’s Solar Orbiter and BepiColombo spacecraft made a historic Venus flyby earlier this week, passing by the planet within 33 hours of each other and capturing unique imagery and data during the encounter.
Perseverance Fails to Collect its First Sample
Fri, 13 Aug 2021 22:52:03 +0000
The Perseverance rover failed to collect its first sample because the rock it tried to drill the sample from was too powdery. The post Perseverance Fails to Collect its First Sample appeared first on Universe Today.
NASA Sends a 3D Printer for Lunar Regolith and More to the ISS
One of the reasons the ISS is still alive and kicking is that it offers a unique environment for testing that is available nowhere, either on the Earth or off of it. Plenty of science experiments want to take advantage of that uniqueness. This week, a fresh crop of experiments was delivered to the ISS
Launcher News
Boeing opts to haul Starliner back to hangar, delays flight indefinitely
Around-the-clock work to fix valve problems that derailed an Aug. 3 attempt to launch Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule on an unpiloted test flight was called off Friday, delaying another try until after NASA launches a higher-priority asteroid probe in mid-October.
NewSpace News
Rocket Lab Inks Deal with Varda Space Industries to Supply Multiple Photon Spacecraft for Space Manufacturing Missions
Leading launch and space systems company Rocket Lab today announced it has signed a deal with in-space manufacturing company Varda Space Industries to produce three Photon spacecraft that will integrate with their space factories, enabling high-value products to be manufactured in zero-gravity and returned to Earth in Varda’s re-entry capsule. Varda’s space-manufactured products are targeted at high-value markets such as fiber optic cables, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors — all of which
BlackSky to expand constellation with three back-to-back missions
BlackSky will add six satellites to its constellation through three dedicated missions via Rocket Lab and launch services provider, Spaceflight Inc
Space Safety News
India’s GSLV Mk.2 fails during launch / Failure blamed on upper stage malfunction
An Indian Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle ran into trouble minutes after lifting off at 8:13 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0013 GMT Thursday). A malfunction in the rocket’s third stage caused the mission’s failure, destroying a sharp-eyed Earth-imaging satellite.
Slingshot Aerospace Announces World’s 1st Collision Avoidance Collaboration & Communications Platform for Space
Slingshot Aerospace, Inc., a company building world-class space simulation and analytics solutions, today announced the launch of Slingshot Beacon, the industry’s first collision avoidance collaboration and communications platform for space, which will be piloted by OneWeb, Spire Global Inc., Orbit Fab and others. The players participating in this pilot program account for 53% of satellite constellations in low earth orbit (LEO)
Slingshot Beacon connects operators across different organizations on a single platform, which has never been done before. It provides customers with existing positional data and packages it in a digestible way with all the necessary information to resolve a conjunction.
NASA mulls how to dispose of International Space Station
A plan to use a Russian spacecraft to deorbit the International Space Station as early as 2028 remains in question because the United States does not know Russia’s intentions for using the orbiting laboratory, NASA and other parties involved in the decision say.
Science & Technology News
Spacesuits could delay NASA’s return to the moon, audit finds
NASA’s goal of landing astronauts back on the moon by 2024 is unlikely and could face further delay because astronauts won’t have spacesuits ready to wear, according to a new audit by the NASA Office of Inspector General. The current spacesuits, known as EMUs, used for spacewalks outside the ISS were first developed over 45 years ago for the space shuttle program and have undergone minor technical changes since.
