April 1st, 2013
Chinese Astronaut Yang Liwei aboard his Shenzhou V spacecraft during China’s first human space flight in October 2003. Image captured from a Chinese Central Television (CCTV) broadcast.
In a March 28 essay in The Diplomat, Scott Pace, a leading U.S. space policy expert, argues the United States should take proactive steps “to shape the international environment for the space activities that our economy and security depend on.” One important step he suggests is to focus on Asia. Read More
January 28th, 2013
Iran’s English Language outlet Press TV reports today that today (Monday) Iran has successfully launched a monkey on a suborbital flight in its new capsule called Pishgam (Pioneer). The Iranian Fars news agency said the capsule was lofted to the desired altitude of 120 km, sent back telemetry, and returned to earth where the monkey was retrieved safely. Read More
January 4th, 2013
In 2007 and 2010 China conducted anti-satellite (ASAT) weapons tests, both on January 11. Rumors circulating for the past few months suggest that some within the U.S. defense and intelligence community believe China is preparing to conduct another ASAT test.
The first media report on these rumors appeared in October. Read More
December 27th, 2012
Press reports now say South Korea has recovered four pieces of the first stage of the Unha-3 rocket that North Korea launched on December 11 (U.S. time). Since all these pieces were found in approximately the same area, they must all have come from the first stage. Read More
December 20th, 2012
China’s Defense Ministry spokesman Yang Yujun made a statement last month denying that China planned to test a new anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon and that it was holding off until November so as not to affect the U.S. presidential election. The ASAT story seemed to originate in a Bill Gertz video and article on a new conservative U.S. Read More
December 15th, 2012
There have been a lot of odd statements about North Korea’s satellite in the press over the last few days. I thought it would be useful to talk about some of them and try to clarify some misconceptions. Read More
December 12th, 2012
After extending its launch window by a week—leading the world to believe technical problems would postpone the launch—North Korea last night conducted its second satellite-launch attempt of 2012 and successfully placed an object in orbit. Read More
December 10th, 2012
Following North Korea’s launch failure in April 2012, we were left with conflicting reports about its cause, and even when it happened during the launch and where the debris fell to earth. A December 4 report in Kyodo News may shed some light on this, but leaves lots of questions. Read More
December 7th, 2012
Following the two launches of the U.S. X-37B space plane, a number of news stories this fall (here and here) have speculated about how quickly China might catch up with the U.S. by developing its own “Shenlong” space plane. Read More
November 29th, 2012
On December 11, United Launch Alliance is scheduled to launch its X-37B prototype space plane for the Air Force from Cape Canaveral for the third time. Its mission, however, still remains a mystery. Read More
© 2013
