All Space news – Page 171
-
News
Proton success is boost for Russians
Russia scored a morale-boosting second consecutive launch on 12 March from the Baikonur Cosmodrome of the four-stage Proton booster, with its DM upper stage, after suffering two failures last year. The launch carried an Express A communications satellite, which was injected into a parking orbit of 226 x 195km ...
-
News
Sea Launch fails with first ICO
Tim Furniss/LONDON The third firing of the international Sea Launch booster failed on 13 March, with the loss of the first ICO Global Communications satellite. The lift-off, from the Odyssey platform in the mid-Pacific, 2,240km (1,390 miles) south-east of Hawaii, was the second commercial launch by the Boeing-led ...
-
News
Magnetosphere deal for UK company
The UK's Surrey Satellite Technology (SSTL) has won a $120,000, 100-day, Magnetosphere Multiscale Mission (MMS) study contract to investigate the range of suitable concepts for a five-spacecraft mission to study the Earth's magnetosphere. Planned for launch in 2005, the five-spacecraft MMS fleet will involve formation flying and two lunar ...
-
News
First Terra satellite images released
NASA has released the first images from an array of instruments aboard its Earth Observing Systems flagship, Terra, which has reached its final 705km (440 miles) polar orbit following its launch on 18 December. They include the Mississippi Delta (shown above). The image was obtained by the polar-orbiting satellite's Moderate ...
-
News
Aiming high
Hopes for the future of Japan's troubled space programme rest with a simplified and cut-price version of its H-2 launcher Andrzej Jeziorski/TOKYO The 20th century closed on a low point for Japan's National Space Development Agency (NASDA). Two failures of its expensive H-2 expendable launch vehicle not only ...
-
News
Beal booster progresses with test firing of BA-810 engine
Tim Furniss/LONDON Beal Aerospace has conducted a test firing of its 810,000lb-thrust (3,605kN), hydrogen-peroxide JET-A kerosene BA-810 engine at McGregor, Texas, as part of the development programme for its BA-2 heavy-lift launch vehicle. The three-stage BA-810-powered BA-2 is due to fly in 2002. Beal says the BA-810 is ...
-
News
ESA selects flexi-mission candidates
The European Space Agency's (ESA) science advisers have proposed six new space science missions to be considered for ESA's "flexi-mission" series, due to be launched between 2005 and 2009. The flexi-missions were introduced in 1997 to allow two missions to be funded for the price of one former medium-class ...
-
News
Soyuz TM cosmonauts to bring Mir out of mothballs
Tim Furniss/LONDON The launch of a Soyuz TM spacecraft from Baikonur, with the first cosmonaut crew to man the Mir space station since it was mothballed last year, will take place on 3 April. The pressurised environment on the Mir has been checked automatically and the launch given the ...
-
News
NEAR monitors asteroid rotation
The NASA Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft has entered a lower, 200km (125 miles), orbit around the asteroid Eros after two orbit correction manoeuvres.Next month NASA hopes to conduct a third short engine burn, moving the spacecraft into a 100km orbit. By May, the NEAR will be moved as ...
-
News
Mars landings
NASA has cancelled the planned Mars landing mission set for launch in 2001. Instead, a replacement for the Mars Climate Orbiter, which was lost in September, will lift off. A replacement Mars Polar Lander (MPL) will be launched in 2002 instead, aiming for the same site as the MPL 1, ...
-
News
Air-launched booster under study by USA
Boeing is studying the feasibility of developing an air-launched booster capable of launching military and commercial payloads on demand. The AirLaunch booster is being designed by Boeing and Thiokol Propulsion as a possible launch system for the USAir Force's planned Space Manoeuvre Vehicle (SMV), a reusable, unmanned spaceplane. ...
-
News
Second Fregat test precedes commercial debut
Starsem plans to launch the second Soyuz Fregat booster from Baikonur on 19 March to place two dummy satellites into a simulated orbit, using the Fregat upper stage. The mission will pave the way for two commercial launches in June and July, designed to place two pairs of Cluster ...
-
News
Power problem delays IMAGE
Concern about the condition of DC-to-DC power converters on the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE) satellite has delayed the 15 March launch of the spacecraft aboard a Boeing Delta II from Vandenberg AFB, California. Launch preparations for the $153 million Lockheed Martin-built satellite have been halted after an ...
-
News
NASA details ISS price list
Tim Furniss/LONDON Users of the US share of International Space Station resources will be charged a standard price of $20.8 million a year, according to a preliminary price structure released by NASA. The charge is quoted for use of each of two typical "bundles" of equipment, excluding transportation ...
-
News
People
American Airlines has named David Cush as vice president (VP), international planning and alliances. Cush returns to American from Aerolineas Argentinas, where he has been chief operating officer (COO) since November 1998, after the termination of the US major's management contract there. Airbus Industrie of North America (AINA) says retiring ...
-
News
Ball plans to bid for radar spot on remote-sensing satellite
Guy Norris/BOULDER Ball Aerospace & Technologies is "gearing up" to propose a synthetic aperture radar to NASA for a free-flying remote sensing satellite. This follows the success of its antennas on the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), which was completed on 22 February. "We're starting to form a team ...
-
News
Photo first for largest commercial satellite
Hughes Space and Communications has released an image transmitted from its first HS-702 spacecraft, Galaxy XI, in geostationary orbit showing the deployment of the spacecraft's solar panels. When extended, the wingspan of the satellite - 34m (111ft) - is equivalent to the wingspan of a Boeing 737. The 30min sequence ...
-
News
Design flaw found in Polar Lander switch system
The Mars Polar Lander (MPL) Failure Review Board has identified a fatal design flaw that could be a possible cause of the loss of the spacecraft on 3 December. A simple switch system to turn off the $167 million lander's engine when contact was made with the ground may have ...
-
News
NASA shocked by commercial Mir plans
NASA is calling for the Mir space station to be de-orbited as planned this summer. The US space administration is concerned that plans for commercialising the Mir is diverting Russian attention and funds from the International Space Station (ISS) and contributing to delays of the latter. The space administration ...
-
News
RLV faces stiff competition
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC NASA will launch "rigorous trade studies" in March to establish the requirements for its revamped second-generation reusable launch vehicle (RLV) programme. The space agency anticipates pursuing "more than two architecture options" when it begins the five-year $4.5 billion second-generation RLV programme in October - assuming Congress ...