by Douglas Messier
Managing Editor

MOJAVE, Calif. — The Mojave Air and Space Port has renamed itself to honor aviation and space pioneers Burt and Dick Rutan. The facility in California’s High Desert is now known as the Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field.

“Whereas, Burt Rutan and Dick Rutan have made significant contributions in experimental aviation design, fabrication, and flight test at Mojave Air and Space Port, with their combined contributions resulting in first flights of over sixty unique experimental aircraft, including one twenty-year period with an average of a first flight of a new manned research type every eight and a half months,” the Board of Directors said in a resolution passed last month.

WATERTON, Colo. (NOAA PR) — A cutting-edge new instrument is ready to be installed on NOAA’s GOES-U satellite, which is scheduled to launch in 2024.  

CAPE CANAVERAL SPACE FORCE STATION, Fla. (State Space Agency of Ukraine PR) — On January 13, 2022, at 17:26 Kiev time, the Falcon 9 launch vehicle launched with the Ukrainian Sich‑2‑30 remote sensing satellite on board. The successful launch took place from the SLC-40 launch complex at Cape Canaveral (USA).

MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — A package of 16 intergovernmental, interdepartmental and commercial documents, including a joint Russian-Chinese statement on international relations, was adopted as part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to China. Among other things, an Agreement on cooperation in the field of ensuring complementarity between GLONASS and Beidou was signed. During the Russian-Chinese summit talks, a Joint Statement by the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Sidus Space PR) — Sidus Space, Inc. (NASDAQ: SIDU), a Space-as-a-Service satellite company focused on commercial satellite design, manufacture, launch, and data collection, is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Red Canyon Software, Inc. (Red Canyon) to support LizzieSat™ Constellation of 100 Satellites.

Through this partnership, Red Canyon will support the design, development, assembly, integration, deployment and sustainment of LizzieSat constellation, with its software solutions.

LizzieSats (LS) are 3D manufactured Low Earth Orbit (LEO) microsatellites focused on rapid, cost-effective development and testing of upcoming innovative spacecraft technologies for multiple customers. LS is a 100kg (220-pound) satellite with space to rapidly integrate customer sensors and technologies.

Lonestar successfully completes data storage and edge processing test as part of the first ever software defined payload sent to the International Space Station

St. Petersburg, Fla., February 3, 2022 (Lonestar Data Holdings PR) — Lonestar Data Holdings Inc. (Lonestar) announces the first ever software defined payload sent to the International Space Station (ISS) enabling successful data storage and edge processing tests on the ISS. 

The first software defined payload was sent to the ISS December 17th 2021. Crucially, it leveraged existing hardware on the ISS retasking an existing computer server on board to become an edge of network node. The server was reconfigured to launch a Canonical Ubuntu virtual machine that stored data and ran an application that blockchained the results, which were sent back to Earth.  

https://www.dlr.de/content/de/artikel/news/2022/01/20220128_gletscher-schmelzen-schneller-als-erwartet.html

• West Antarctica: Smith, Pope and Kohler glaciers are melting faster than expected.
• Critical area: Free-floating undersides of glaciers melt the most.
• Ice masses in West Antarctica could raise sea levels by up to 1.3 meters.
• Focus: space travel, earth observation, global change, TanDEM-X

COLOGNE, Germany (DLR PR) — The South Pole has new problem children. A group of smaller glaciers are melting faster than expected: Pope, Smith and Kohler. So far, the neighboring ice giants Thwaites and Pine Island have been the focus of research because they are very fragile and could cause global sea levels to rise by up to 1.2 meters. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) has uncovered and analyzed the changes in West Antarctica together with international research partners. Using special radar data from the TanDEM-X and COSMO-SkyMed satellite missions, they tracked down the causes of the rapid melting of the smaller glaciers.

Astra Space scrubbed the first operational launch of its Rocket 3.3 booster on Saturday after a radar system that would track the flight malfunctioned.

PLESETSK COSMODROME, Russia (Ministry of Defense PR) — On Saturday, February 5, at 10:00 (Moscow time) from the State Test Cosmodrome of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (Plesetsk Cosmodrome) in the Arkhangelsk Region, the combat crew of the Space Forces of the Aerospace Forces successfully launched a Soyuz-2.1a medium-class launch vehicle with a spacecraft in the interests of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

• On January 29, 2022, the DLR sounding rocket MAPHEUS-9 brought four experiments into weightlessness for around six minutes.
• The rocket, weighing 1.7 tons, took off from the ESRANGE launch site in northern Sweden and reached an altitude of 254 kilometers.
• Experiments from the fields of materials research and manufacturing technology, granulate physics and gravitational biology were also on board.

KIRUNA, Sweden (DLR PR) — Plate animals usually like it a little warmer. For science, the simplest multicellular animal in the world ended up in northern Sweden – and from there into weightlessness for a short time. On January 29, 2022, the marine organisms were successfully lifted off the rocket launch site on board the MAPHEUS-9 sounding rocket operated by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) at ESRANGE (European Space and Sounding Rocket Range). Three other experiments from the fields of physics, materials research and manufacturing technology also enjoyed six minutes and ten seconds in zero gravity.

Launch Date Set for NASA CubeSat Mission Aboard Astra Space’s Rocket 3.3

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. (NASA PR) — NASA’s first mission under the agency’s Venture Class Launch Services (VCLS) Demonstration 2 contract is scheduled to launch four CubeSats to space no earlier than Feb. 5, 2022. The CubeSats, which make up the agency’s 41st Educational Launch of Nanosatellites (ELaNa) mission, will be the first VCLS launch from Space Launch Complex 46 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida and Astra Space Inc’s first operational satellite launch aboard its Rocket 3.3.

WESTMINSTER, Colo., Feb. 3, 2022 (Maxar Technologies PR) –Maxar Technologies (NYSE: MAXR) (TSX: MAXR), provider of comprehensive space solutions and secure, precise, geospatial intelligence, today announced a new five-year agreement with European Space Imaging and Space Imaging Middle East, strategic partners serving customers in Europe, Northern Africa and the Middle East.

European Space Imaging and Space Imaging Middle East provide Maxar high-resolution satellite imagery to a wide spectrum of government and commercial organizations for applications including border security, disaster response and agriculture. Continuing an 11-year partnership, European Space Imaging has reserved dedicated capacity on Maxar’s existing WorldView satellite imaging constellation, accessed directly via its ground station in Germany. The agreement also provides for upgrades to European Space Imaging’s ground station that would allow it to access Maxar’s next-generation WorldView Legion satellites.