SSI News
Round-up of recommended space stories in April 2024
We're keeping an eye on space news on the web so you don't have to wade through it all. Here is our round-up of the most important, and interesting, space news stories of April (note that space orders is on another post): Future Human Spaceflight Blue Origin...
Mel’s Good Space – April 2024
I love a good space story. Especially the ones of adventure, risk, technology and humans overcoming challenges presented by the cosmos. Enter our recently released report. Positioned through the lifecycle of a satellite, it makes for the start of a fascinating story....
Thuraya-3 satellite’s comms payload fails in orbit
Middle Eastern satellite operator Yahsat’s subsidiary Thuraya has lost the communications payload on one of its satellites. The Thuraya-3 communications satellite, located over 98.5 degrees east in geostationary Earth orbit (GEO), had a serious payload anomaly on 15...
International Space Station battery debris falls on Florida home…so should Keraunothnetophobics be afraid?
Keraunothnetophobia, as defined by some online dictionaries, is the fear of falling artificial satellites and other space objects. It is not to be confused with Keraunophobia, the fear of lightning strikes. Although often regarded as especially irrational,...
Space launch and satellite orders in April 2024
Lots of military space orders - mostly small ones - were announced during April 2024. Many were revealed at one of the military space conferences during the month, including the Space Symposium, Colorado Springs, USA. There were also some large non-military orders...
US Navy counters Iran’s retaliatory mass missile attack on Israel using exo-atmospheric interceptors
The US Navy has used its Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptor in action for the first time. SM-3s were used to shoot down Iranian medium-range ballistic missiles fired at Israel on 13 April in response to a fatal air strike, which Israel is widely believed to be...
Analysis: spiralling costs may spell end of the line for Mars Sample Return
The cost of NASA’s Mars Sample Return project has doubled from a projected US$5.3 billion to US$11 billion, prompting many to question whether it is worth continuing with the mission. In response, the US space agency has turned to its field centres for cost cutting...
Analysis: Delta IV Heavy retires as Angara-5 flies from Vostochny on only its fourth launch in ten years
A pair of major launches, that took place just days apart in April, illustrate how far Russia has lost its way from the days when it was at the forefront of rocket launch technology. The first, from the US, was a swansong: the Delta IV Heavy’s last flight. The other,...
Human space: dockings, undockings and spacewalks from both ISS and Tiangong CSS
Soyuz MS-24 undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) Rassvet module at around 0353 GMT on 6 April. The crew aboard were NASA astroanaut Loral O'Hara, Russian cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy, and Belarus astronaut Marina Vasilevskaya. Soyuz MS-24 landed in...
An audience with Aarti Holla-Maini, Director of UNOOSA
Farah Ghouri finds out how Aarti Holla-Maini, director of the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs, is faring six months into the job, her plans for the office and why she believes the UN’s sustainability guidelines are the “treaty of our times” Six months after taking up...
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