SSI News
Attempt to raise ISS orbit with Cygnus NG-17 fails…but it works five days later (Updated)
An attempt to raise the orbit of the International Space Station (ISS) using a rocket engine on the attached Cygnus NG-17 (Piers Sellars) cargo freighter spacecraft failed at 1520 GMT on 20 June. The spacecraft, which had been docked at the Earth-facing port of the...
South Korea successfully completes second test flight of Nuri rocket
At 0700 GMT, 21 June, the Nuri (KSLV-II) launch vehicle lifted-off from the Naro Space Center, South Korea. This success marks the second test flight for the indigenous South Korean rocket, after the late-flight failure of its first launch in October 2021. The mission...
Space Launches: Three up in less than three days for Space X Falcon 9…but one is a mystery
In a flurry of activity, SpaceX performed three separate Falcon 9 launches in less than three days. At 1609 GMT on 17 June, a SpaceX Falcon 9v1.2FT Block 5 rocket carried 53 Starlink v1.5 Group 4-19 communications satellites to orbit for SpaceX itself. The mission...
Seven satellites trapped on Vigoride-3 (VR-3) after power fault
The Momentus Space Vigoride-3 (VR-3) satellite delivery spacecraft has reportedly failed to release seven of its nine satellite payloads. This follows a serious power shortfall since its launch on the Falcon 9 Transporter-5 flight on 25 May. The cause is believed to...
Another Astra rocket failure: this time two NASA TROPICS hurricane monitoring satellites are lost
After a two-hour delay due to a problem with the Liquid Oxygen storage/conditioning, Astra Space launched its Astra Rocket 3.3 (flight LV0010) from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA at 1743 GMT on 12 June 2022. But all did not subsequently go to plan. The lift off, fairing...
Roscosmos “hijacks” German eRosita instrument on Spektr-RG astronomy satellite then Rogozin demands far worse
Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency and conglomerate, has taken what is thought to be the illegal step of unilaterally ordering the switching on of a spacecraft instrument it does not own. The German Max Planck Institute ordered its eRosita instrument on Russia’s Spektr...
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) suffers main mirror segment damage after micrometeoroid strike
NASA has reported that a micrometeoroid strike has caused some damage to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The largest of five meteoroid strikes since its December 2021 launch occurred between 23 and 25 May, causing damage to one segment (segment C3) of its 6 m...
SpaceX Falcon 9 launches Nilesat 301 into super-synchronous transfer orbit
SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9v1.2FT Block 5 from Cape Canaveral, USA at 2104 GMT on 8 June 2022. The launch vehicle carried Nilesat 301, an Egyptian telecommunication satellite on its way to its geostationary operational orbit. To save fuel for its later...
Russian cargo freighter launched on Soyuz rocket docks with International Space Station
A Russian cargo freighter was successfully launched on a Soyuz 2.1a launch vehicle from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan at 0932 GMT on 3 June. The freighter, called Progress MS-20, was put on a fast-track, two-orbit rendezvous path with the International Space Station...
Movie Review – Top Gun: Maverick’s “633 Squadron” plan is very good but whatever happened to “Charlie”?
For those of us who were teenage boys when it was released, Tony Scott’s Top Gun (1986) was an inspirational movie that made us all, briefly, want to be fighter pilots. It told the story of a rebellious, slightly childish, young US Navy aviator, in the form of Tom...
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