MOSCOW (Roscosmos PR) — In accordance with the State Commission decision, the Proton-M carrier rocket with the new Nauka laboratory module is scheduled to launch from Site 200 of the Baikonur Cosmodrome on July 21, 2021 at 14:58:21 UTC. Reserve dates: July 22 and 23. Its flight to the International Space Station will take 8 days, and docking to the nadir port of the Zvezda service module is scheduled for July 29, expected at 13:26 UTC.

Non-Profit Organization Announces they will Begin Accepting New Applications for Citizen Astronauts to go to Space

DENVER, July 8, 2021 (Space for Humanity PR) — Space For Humanity, the non-profit creating the planet’s first Sponsored Citizen Astronaut Program to send citizens of diverse racial, economic and disciplinary backgrounds into space, today opened the application process for leaders, from any walk of life, to apply for an opportunity to go to space.

NASA Update

July 08, 2021 – Successful Completion of Multi-Day Test

NASA successfully completed a test of procedures that would be used to switch to backup hardware on Hubble in response to the payload computer problem. This switch could occur next week after further preparations and reviews.

WASHINGTON (FAA PR) – The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) can now track a space launch or reentry vehicle in near-real time as it travels through the National Airspace System. This new capability increases safety for all airspace users and assists the FAA in efficiently managing air traffic during space operations.

The Space Data Integrator (SDI) prototype automates the delivery of vehicle-related telemetry data to the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center. This vastly improves the FAA’s situational awareness of where the vehicle is as it travels to space or as it returns to the Earth. In addition to existing tools, the FAA also can use SDI to manage air traffic more efficiently as a space operation progresses and address contingencies in the event of an anomaly during a mission.

WASHINGTON (NASA PR) — NASA and Northrop Grumman of Dulles, Virginia, have finalized a contract to develop the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) for Gateway, which will be a critical way station and outpost in orbit around the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program.

NASA and its commercial and international partners are building Gateway to support science investigations and enable surface landings at the Moon, which will help prepare astronauts for future missions to Mars.

Written by Håvard F. Grip, Ingenuity Chief Pilot, and Ken Williford, Perseverance Deputy Project Scientist

PASADENA, Calif. — It has been a week of heightened apprehension on the Mars Helicopter team as we prepared a major flight challenge for Ingenuity. We uplinked instructions for the flight, which occurred Monday, July 5 at 2:03 am PT, and waited nervously for results to arrive from Mars later that morning. The mood in the ground control room was jubilant when we learned that Ingenuity was alive and well after completing a journey spanning 2,051 feet (625 meters) of challenging terrain.

EDWARDS, Calif. (NASA PR) — NASA’s 2021 Tech Flights solicitation is now open! Tech Flights offers funding opportunities to researchers from U.S.-based industry, academia, and private research institutions to rapidly test technologies on commercial suborbital vehicles with awards up to $650,000 per awardee.

Achievement is key step toward realization of global high-speed space network

ARLINGTON, Va. (DARPA PR) — DARPA successfully deployed two satellites on June 30 as part of the SpaceX Transporter 2 launch. Both Mandrake 2 spacecraft, Able and Baker, are functioning well and progressing through checkout and commissioning. Conceived as an early risk-reduction flight for DARPA’s Blackjack  program, the Mandrake 2 mission will prove out advanced laser communications technologies for a broad government stakeholder team that includes DARPA, Space Development Agency (SDA), Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate (AFRL/RV), and Office of the Secretary of Defense’s (OSD) Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) office.

Stanford researchers use geospatial imagery and machine learning technology to gain real-time insights

HERNDON, Va. (BlackSky PR) — BlackSky Holdings, Inc. (“BlackSky”), a leading technology platform providing real-time geospatial intelligence and global monitoring that has announced a planned business combination with Osprey Technology Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: SFTW), today shared that its geospatial imagery was used in a groundbreaking intelligence study that tracks and monitors activity at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran.

BlackSky’s high-revisit satellite imagery enabled researchers at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) to monitor the pattern of life at the Natanz nuclear facility and gain a better understanding of activity and events at the site. BlackSky’s satellites provide high, intraday revisit capabilities, allowing CISAC’s research team to receive multiple images a day, throughout the day, rather than just one image collected at roughly the same time each day.

Well, this ought to be interesting.

• High-resolution greenhouse gas monitoring satellite pioneer GHGSat to map methane emissions at sea.
• Industrial participants include Chevron, Shell, and TotalEnergies.
• 18 offshore sites in locations such as the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico to be observed over 12 months.

MONTREAL, July 7, 2021 (GHGSat PR) – GHGSat today announced a new research project to assess the feasibility of its unique high-resolution, space-based methane monitoring technology to measure emissions from offshore oil and gas platforms. Chevron, Shell, and TotalEnergies are supporting the 12-month research project, which is expected to achieve a world-first in demonstrating high-resolution satellite-based monitoring of anthropogenic methane (CH4) emissions at sea.