Nine U.S. companies now are eligible to bid on NASA delivery services to the lunar surface through Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) contracts, as one of the first steps toward long-term scientific study and human exploration of the Moon and eventually Mars.
NASA Breaking News
Three space travelers, including two astronauts on their first flight, are scheduled to launch to the International Space Station on Monday, Dec. 3 for a six-and-a-half month mission.
NASA Breaking News
This Hubble Space Telescope mosaic is of a portion of the immense Coma cluster of over 1,000 galaxies, located 300 million light-years from Earth.
NASA Image of the Day
December is shaping up to be a heavy traffic period at the International Space Station. Two crews will swap places before Christmas and a U.S. spaceship will deliver new supplies and science. A Russian spacewalk is also planned for a crew vehicle inspection.
The Expedition 57 crew onboard the station today continued preparing for the upcoming missions while researching space science. Commander Alexander Gerst cleaned cooling loops in U.S. spacesuits as Flight Engineer Sergey Prokopyev prepared the Soyuz MS-09 crew vessel for next month’s undocking. Astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor worked on commercial science gear, semiconductor crystal observations and space gardening.
Monday and Tuesday are launch days for a new crew and a cargo delivery. Two new astronauts and a veteran cosmonaut are set to blast off first on Monday at 6:31 a.m. EST aboard the Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft. Soyuz Commander Oleg Kononenko flanked by new Expedition 58 Flight Engineers Anne McClain and David Saint-Jacques will dock to the station’s Poisk module just six hours and five minutes later.
The very next day, the SpaceX Dragon commercial resupply ship will launch on its 16th mission to the orbital laboratory with a variety of new science experiments at 1:38 p.m. Dragon will orbit Earth for two days before reaching a point about 10 meters from the station where it will be captured with the Canadarm2 robotic arm.
Following those two critical arrivals at the orbital laboratory, cosmonauts Prokopyev and Oleg Kononenko will exit the station for the third Russian spacewalk of the year on Dec. 11. The duo will wear their Orlan spacesuits for about six hours of inspection work on the Soyuz MS-09 crew craft docked to the Rassvet module.
After the vehicle inspection, the Soyuz MS-09 will return to Earth Dec. 20 bringing home the Expedition 57 crew after six and a half months in space. Auñón-Chancellor and Gerst will sit on either side of Soyuz Commander Prokopyev as he leads the trio to a parachuted landing in Kazakhstan at 12:03 a.m.
Mark Garcia
Es’hail-2 Geostationary Satellite
Es’hail-2 is still in a temporary GEO slot, according to the Keps at ~24°E. This is not the final location which planned to be at 26°E
The satellite Es’hail-2, carrying amateur radio transponders, launched from the Kennedy Space Center at 2046 GMT on Thursday, November 15, 2018.
On the AMSAT Bulletin Board Peter Gülzow DB2OS writes:
During the next 1-2 month they will perform some fine tuning and extensive In-Orbit-Testing in this position not to interfere with other GEO satellites nearby.
Once that is finished, the satellite will slowly be drifting to and stationed at the final position.
However, several “hunters” have already spotted the Engineering beacon from Es’hail-2, so obviously everything looks good and is according to the plan.. 
The checkout and inauguration of the both AMSAT transponders will be performed after the IOT phase is finished https://amsat-dl.org/p4a-positionining-and-iot
Stay tuned for latest news on https://amsat-dl.org/
and the official Es’hail-2 / P4-A discussion forum on
https://forum.amsat-dl.org/index.php?board/3-es-hail-2-amsat-phase-4-a/
73s Peter DB2OS, AMSAT-DL
Coming soon Es’hail-2 WebSDR https://eshail.batc.org.uk/
m5aka
AMSAT-UK
