Satellite

The smoke alarm went off yesterday in Russia's segment of the ISS while astronauts smelled burning plastic on board, Roscosmos and NASA said. The news comes after small cracks have been found in the Zarya module just last month. The smoke detector was triggered during automatic battery charging, Roscosmos said.

Rocket Lab will launch and deploy the satellite constellation of Kinéis, a global Internet-of-Things (IoT) connectivity provider, the company said. The multi-launch contract will see Rocket Lab deploy 25 Internet-of-Things (IoT) satellites across five dedicated missions on the Electron launch vehicle.

The UK branch of D-Orbit signed a €2,197M contract with ESA for phase 1 of the development and in-orbit validation of a “Deorbit Kit”, D-Orbit said. The agreement is part of ESA’s Space Safety Programme. The decommissioning kit is a self-contained suite of equipment that can be used with space vehicles of any size.

Challenging Elon Musk`s Starlink in his home turf, the low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications company OneWeb works with the telecommunications company AT&T to provide satellite access for businesses in remote areas across the U.S., the company said.

Orolia is paid €70 million to provide atomic clocks for the first 12 satellites of the Galileo Second Generation System (G2S), Orolia announced. The funding comes in two contracts, one with ESA and the other with Leonardo. The news comes after the European Commission and ESA chose Orolia’s Skydel GNSS signal simulation core engine for the G2S radiofrequency constellation simulator in May.

The European and the U.S. space agencies, ESA and NASA, have scheduled the launch of the giant James Webb Space Telescope on an Ariane 5 rocket for 18 December 2021, Arianespace said. Flight VA256 is scheduled for 18 December from the Guiana Space Center, Arianespace said. The launcher and launch services are part of ESA´s contribution to the Webb project.

Virgin Orbit is planning to expand its participation in the military by competing for tactically responsive launch contracts with Space Force, SpaceNews reports. They are trying to prove that rockets launched from airplanes in flight can be useful for national security.

Masten Space Systems was awarded a Phase II SBIR contract to develop and test a lunar positioning and navigation network prototype, Masten said. The GPS-like solution is part of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s AFWERX program. The network will boost cislunar security, improve landing accuracy and hazard avoidance by providing location tracking for spacecraft and astronauts on the lunar surface.

As part of the partnership between SpaceWatch.Global and Orbital Gateway Consulting we have been granted permission to publish selected articles and texts. We are pleased to present “Dongfang Hour China Aerospace News Roundup 30 August - 5 September 2021”. A special shout-out to our friends at SpaceWatch.Global,

Space Café Scotland Angela Mathis and her guests Kenzie Young, fresh from the Scottish Space School this summer, and Mick O’Connor, Programme Director at Prestwick Spaceport - explore the challenges and some local initiatives to achieve inclusion. How to help people feel they can be included in Scotland’s Space journey.