Long March 5 success highlights the week

A Long March 5 rocket carried the SJ-20 saellite from Wenchang to orbit, 27 Dec 2019 1245 UT (Weibo)

Orbital News
27 Dec 2019 1245 UT – Wenchang CZ-5 SJ-20 commsat
29 Dec 2019 – Christina Koch sets an orbital endurance record

Regional News
27 Dec 2019 – 12 injured in LN2 breach at Beechcraft plant in Wichita
28 Dec 2019 –

Dr. Cheryl Rockman-Greenberg of Winnipeg named to the Order of Canada, for work on genetic disorders.
Also named, three from Ontario and B.C. for aviation matters, and
James Cameron of Saskatoon, for achievements in film.

29 Dec 2019 – KauaŹ»i tourist flight crash killed two from Wisconsin
29 Dec 2019 – Starlink satellites spotted over Manitoba
30 Dec 2019 – Bismarck offers $4000 scholarships for new pilots
30 Dec 2019 – MDA splits off from Maxar in 1 G$ CAD deal
30 Dec 2019 – Sun Country Airlines may add Sioux Falls to express bus network
30 Dec 2019 – Honeywell cuts 90 aerospace jobs in Minnesota
31 Dec 2019 –

Colin O’Brady of Jackson Hole,
Andrew Towne of Grand Forks,
and 4 international adventurers,
reached Antarctica after rowing from South America

31 Dec 2019 – Billings adds flights to Dallas, Portland on American, Alaska
31 Dec 2019 – Colorado-based planes to track GHG emissions
02 Jan 2020 – United flight slides off runway at Bismarck Airport
02 Jan 2020 – Unidentified drones fly after sunset in Colorado and Nebraska

Further News
29 Dec 2019 – Boeing updates public on Starliner recovery and checkout
30 Dec 2019 – Iridium wonders aloud about how to deorbit 30 dead commsats
30 Dec 2019 – SLS test slips to perhaps April or later
02 Jan 2020 – Japanese Momo rocket test postponed

Late News
19 Dec 2019 – New (?) spaceport licence sought for the local airport near Cape Canaveral
22 Dec 2019 – Myrtle Cagle, pilot of Mercury 13 fame, dead at 94
23 Dec 2019 – Alaska Airlines upgrades Bozeman to mainline 21 May 2020
23 Dec 2019 – FAA ends untrained ATC quota, U of North Dakota pleased
25 Dec 2019 – Sioux Falls crash revisited one year later

Jim Peebles shares Nobel Prize in Physics this week

Michelle Brekke of Boeing Crew Space Transportation serves as Grand Marshall of the University of Minnesota homecoming parade (University of Minnesota/GopherSports)

REGIONAL NEWS

04 Oct 2019 – Jim Bridenstein visit to the University of North Dakota in September featured on Space.com

04 Oct 2019 – Michelle Brekke (Boeing CST) serves as Grand Marshall of University of Minnesota homecoming

07 Oct 2019 – Bennett Bartel (Carthage College) featured by WiSGC

08 Oct 2019 – Saskatchewan engineer Doug Campbell ends 6 days underwater

08 Oct 2019 – Nobel Prize in Physics awarded jointly to Manitoba-born James Peebles OM, the originator of modern physical cosmology, elucidating topics like the Cosmic Microwave Background, the kinematics of galaxies, and the expansion of the universe, and to Swiss astrophysicists Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, for the discovery of exoplanet 51 Pegasi b in October 1995, using the ELODIE spectrograph on the 1.93m telescope at the Haute-Provence Observatory.

09 Oct 2019 – Breanna Keith (Bemidji State) featured by MnSGC

09 Oct 2019 – University of Minnesota’s SmallSat program (SOCRATES, EXACT) featured by MnSGC
SOCRATES will orbit on 2 Nov 2019 with Cygnus NG-12

ORBITAL EVENTS

The Gaofen-10 Earth observation satellite launches from Taiyuan on a Long March 4C rocket, 4 October 2019 1850 UT (Weibo)

04 Oct 2019 1850 – Taiyuan CZ-4C launch
Gaofen-10 Earth observation satellite

06 Oct 2019 – EVA214 – P6 battery swap

08 Oct 2019 1017 – Baikonur Proton-M launch:
Northrop Grumman MEV-1 on-orbit service drone,
Eutelsat 5 West B commsat

A Proton-M rocket launches from Baikonur 08 October 2019 1017 UT, with Eutelsat 5 West B commsat and the MEV-1 mission extension robot aboard (Credit: Roscosmos)

FURTHER NEWS

04 Oct 2019 – Blue Origin will not fly passengers until 2020

06 Oct 2019 – ESA in talks to put a European astronaut on third flight of the Orion capsule, Worner says in interview with nasaspaceflight.com

07 Oct 2019 ~ 20 new moons of Saturn announced

10 Oct 2019 – Bridenstein-Musk summit: Crew Dragon DM-2 postponed to Q1 2020

Sask’s Doug Campbell finishes 6 days underwater

CBC Saskatchewan featured Doug Campbell, a biomedical engineer and astronaut candidate, whose latest achievement is spending an unusual 6-day stay at Jules’ Undersea Lodge in the waters off Key Largo, Florida. Isolation training is a feather in the cap for Campbell, who has not yet been selected by any space agency for official duties, though, in a new age of private astronautics, government training may no longer be necessary.