All Space news – Page 178
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Breitling Orbiter 3 tops GAPAN Awards
Achievements in ballooning, increasing the safety of escape and survival from helicopters ditching in water and the design and development of autogyros were among the aviation accomplishments of 1998-9 honoured by the UK's Guild of Air Pilots and Navigators (GAPAN) at its annual awards presentation on 27 October at London's ...
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Zvezda launch in doubt after latest Proton failure
The launch schedule of the International Space Station Zvezda service module is threatened again following a Russian Proton K launcher failure on 27 October. The booster, which was carrying the domestic Express A-1 communications satellite, was the second Proton launch failure from Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome in four months. The ...
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Galileo partners set up consortium
The industrial partners in the European Galileo navigation satellite programme have established a joint venture consortium with headquarters in Brussels. DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, Dornier Satellitinen-systeme, Alenia Aerospazio and Matra Marconi Space are working on the definition phase of the Galileo system funded by the European Community and the European Space Agency. ...
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NASA reschedules Shuttle launches
NASA has given tentative launch dates for the next three Space Shuttle missions as wiring inspections and repairs on orbiters Discovery and Endeavour near completion and similar work begins on Atlantis. The STS103 Discovery, the Hubble Space Telescope-Servicing 3A mission, will be launched on 2 December. The Shuttle ...
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Globalstar tally increases as ICO changes business plan
Tim Furniss/LONDON Starsem launched another Soyuz-Ikar booster from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan, on 18 October, carrying four more Globalstar satellites into orbit, bringing the total to 44. Starsem, the Aerospatiale Matra, Arianespace, Russian Space Agency and Samara Space Centre company, plans another launch next month, carrying another four ...
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Arianespace puts Orion 2 into orbit
Arianespace launched a 44LP booster from Kourou, French Guiana, on 19 October on mission V122, carrying the Orion 2 digital TV satellite for Loral Orion. It was the 48th consecutive Ariane 4 launch success and the third Ariane 4 launch in 45 days. The V123 mission, set for 13 November, ...
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ISS mission support site opens
Boeing support personnel for the International Space Station (ISS) and Space Shuttle have begun moving into a $3 million, engineering/mission support room (EMSR). Similar to NASA's mission control complex at Houston, the EMSR was opened at the company's Huntington Beach site in California on 18 October. It replaces ...
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Levitation kick-start could cut costs
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and PRT Advanced Maglev System have built a track to test whether a rocket-powered spacecraft could be given a low-cost, high speed kick-start into the atmosphere before the craft's engines are ignited. The 15m (50ft)-long development is an electrically powered advanced linear induction motor-powered magnetic ...
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NASA denies Mars Polar science loss
Tim Furniss/LONDON The Mars Polar Lander (MPL) will not lose its science-gathering capability as a result of the loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter on 23 September, says NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The MPL is set to land on the edge of the Martian south pole on 6 December. ...
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Wiring snags delay ISS module
Tim Furniss/LONDON The Proton launch of the Russian Zvezda service module to the International Space Station (ISS), planned for 12 November, has been put back to between 26 December and 16 January, with more delays possible. Although Russian launch site testing of the module has been slower than intended, the ...
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Lockheed Martin poised for VentureStar review
A critical design review of the proposed VentureStar reusable launch vehicle, based on the Lockheed Martin X-33 advanced technology demonstrator, will take place this month. Work on the X-33 has convinced Lockheed Martin that the VentureStar will use an external payload bay, says Jerry Rising, Lockheed Martin's X-33 and ...
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NASA panels to probe loss of Mars Orbiter
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA has established three investigation panels to look into the failure of the Mars Climate Orbiter (MCO) on 23 September. NASA's $125 million craft was lost 5min after the firing of its orbital-insertion engine burn. The Orbiter was flying at up to 80-90km too low because the ...
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Telescope launch
Integral, the European Space Agency's (ESA) International Gamma Ray Astrophysics Laboratory will be launched on a Russian Proton booster in 2001. The spacecraft will be placed into a highly elliptical Earth orbit. Meanwhile, the ESA's X-Ray Multi Mirror telescope has arrived at Kourou in preparation for its launch aboard the ...
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X-34 completes tests
The Orbital Sciences (OSC) A-1 X-34 test vehicle completed its final captive test flight last month, under the belly of an OSC Lockheed TriStar, from the Dryden Research Centre in California. The A-1 vehicle will be upgraded and used next year for 120km/h tow tests on a runway, and ...
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Cape Canaveral gets backing for more sounding missions
Spaceport Florida Authority (SFA) is backing plans to allow Cape Canaveral to support major suborbital sounding rocket research missions with the addition of Terrier and Orion sounding rockets to its inventory. At present, SFA operates small Loki sounding rockets. The research missions can be flown for individual experiments, to ...
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Pizza Proton
The Pizza Hut company will place a 10m (30ft)-wide logo on the side of the Proton booster that will launch the Zvezda module to the International Space Station (ISS), providing the Russian space programme with much needed funds. The Russian Space Agency, which has sold experiment time on its segment ...
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Cash snags mar DoD satellite plans
Graham Warwick/WASHINGTON DC The ambitions of the US Department of Defense (DoD) to renew its communications satellite constellations could be scuppered by funding challenges facing all its programmes. The first issue facing the DoD is whether it can afford to replace the Milstar II satellite which was launched ...
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United Space accepts shuttle delay costs
The Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture United Space Alliance, which operates the Space Shuttle fleet for NASA, is to pay "several million dollars" in penalties for delays to the flight schedule caused by wiring defects in the orbiters (Flight International, 29 September-5 October). The cost of the repairs to the Endeavour ...
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Worldwide launch flurry puts nine satellites into orbit
Tim Furniss/LONDON Six launches over seven days have resulted in the orbiting of nine satellites: four Globalstars, the Echostar V, Telstar 7, Ikonos 2, LM-1 and the Resurs F1M. The burst of activity started with a Starsem Soyuz launch from Baikonur on 22 September, which placed four Loral-built ...
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Orbimage and Ikonos moves warm up remote sensing fight
Competition in the commercial remote sensing satellite market will increase sharply because of the launch of the Ikonos satellite and moves by rival Orbimage to boost its market access. Orbimage and Radarsat International of Canada have signed an agreement which appoints Orbimage principal distributor of Radarsat 1 images in ...