Click here to view the pdf

The fifth and final next-generation narrowband communications satellite being built for the U.S. Navy by Lockheed Martin has entered its first system test phase. The Lockheed Martin team recently mated the Mobile User Objective System (MUOS) system module, which carries mission system equipment, and the core—which houses propulsion—with a key antenna for the satellite.

HOUSTON — Astronauts aboard the International Space Station opened hatches to access the “Orb-1” Cygnus resupply capsule Jan. 12, following a successful rendezvous and berthing of the Orbital Sciences Corp. resupply craft launched last week on the first of an eight-flight, $1.9 billion Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) agreement with NASA.

The White House decision to extend International Space Station (ISS) operations until 2024 found widespread support among a global gathering of space-agency chiefs meeting in Washington this week, but in some cases mainly as a way to gain more time to prepare national space programs to participate in China’s planned space station later in the 2020s.

HOUSTON — Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy are potentially scheduling late January for a second attempt to install two Canadian-furnished commercial Earth-observing cameras outside the International Space Station, after transmission problems thwarted their efforts during a marathon Dec. 27 spacewalk. The latest excursion is tentatively planned for Jan. 27, according to Dan Hartman, NASA’s deputy International Space Station program manager.

Click here to view the pdf

Crewmembers on the International Space Station are set to get 2,780 lb. of science experiments and fresh supplies early Sunday, after Orbital Sciences Corp.’s new Antares launch vehicle orbited the company’s Cygnus cargo carrier in a delayed launch Thursday afternoon. Liftoff of the Antares from its custom-built pad at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore came at 1:07 p.m. EST, and the spacecraft separated into its target orbit 10 min. later. Solar array deployment followed shortly afterward.

NEW DELHI — India will carry out a test launch of the heaviest variant of its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), the Mk. 3, in April. “The rocket will have a passive cryogenic engine,” Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan says. The Mk. 3, an advanced version of the GSLV, is designed to launch communications satellites weighing more than 4 metric tons (8,800 lb.). The chief objective of the mission “will be to study the aerodynamics and stability of the rocket,” Radhakrishnan says.