SSI News
SLS saves itself with successful full-duration engine firing but its career may still be short
NASA’s much delayed and very expensive SLS heavy-lift launch vehicle (HLV) has coming under renewed criticism as SpaceX’s partly reusable commercial HLV has advanced into its stage testing programme (the main super-booster stage is nearly constructed while the...
Retired NOAA 17 satellite breaks up in orbit creating debris hazard then Yunhai 1-02 does the same
At 0711 GMT on 10 March 2021, the retired NOAA 17 weather satellite broke up in orbit. So far 16 pieces of debris have been tracked. There is no indication that this break up was caused by a collision. Scientists are concerned that the debris may present a hazard to...
Aspiring launch provider Relativity Space awarded contract to launch military STP payload
Relativity Space, an American company developing "3-D printed" rockets, has been given a contract by the US military to launch an STP (Space Test Program) payload in 2023. Its upcoming rocket, named Terran-1, is expected to conduct its maiden flight later this year.
On a sadder note: Heroic SRB engineer Allan McDonald dies at 83, as does Apollo 13 flight director Glynn Lunney, boxer “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler, F1 commentator Murray Walker, racing driver Sabine Schmitz, & actors Yaphet Kotto and George Segal
Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) engineer and the man who refused to be cowed by his management or NASA, Allan McDonald, has died at the age of 83. McDonald was the morally courageous engineer who refused to sign off on the SRBs as safe before the Space...
Third Starlink launch in March puts another 60 sats into orbit and sets new rocket re-use record
At 1001 GMT on 14 March a SpaceX Falcon 9 launched from Kennedy Space Centre, Florida carrying 60 STARLINK satellites. This was the third such launch this month, with a fourth mission planned for 21 March. The satellites were dispensed into a sub-300 km deployment...
International Space Station: Astronauts make another spacewalk and CubeSats are ejected as was a “spacejunk” pallet…plus a reparking of Soyuz MS-17
On 13 March, two NASA astronauts Victor Glover and Michael Hopkins, made an EVA (extra vehicular activity), more commonly known as a spacewalk, from the International Space Station (ISS). Five minutes after depressurisation the airlock hatch was opened at 1314...
Long March 4C launches three Yaogan 31-04 satellites
At 0220 GMT on 13 March 2021, a Long March 4C (CZ-4C) launch vehicle successfully launched three Yaogan 31-04 satellites (Yaogan 31-04 A,B & C) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in China. Officially the satellits are for measurement of the electromagnetic...
Long March 7A makes successful return after maiden failure as it launches Shiyan 9
China launched a Long March 7A vehicle carrying the Shiyan 9 satellite into GEO at 1751 GMT on 11 March from the Wenchang Space Launch Site, Hainan Island. The Shiyan 9’s mission is believed to be imaging the Earth from Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO). The satellite...
US Space Force hands out four launch contracts: two apiece to ULA and SpaceX
On 9 March 2021 the US Space Force (USSF) awarded launch contracts for four upcoming missions planned to launch in 2023. The contracts were split two apiece between ULA (United Launch Alliance) and SpaceX. ULA has been given responsibility for launching...
Another day…another Starlink launch: 60 satellites launched by SpaceX Falcon 9
SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9v1.2FT Block 5 launch vehicle carrying 60 STARLINK satellites at 0813 GMT on Thursday 13 March from Cape Canaveral Air Force base in Florida, USA. The launch vehicles first stage was successfully landed on the drone barge “Just...
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