All Space news – Page 184
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Indian ambition
India's determination to become a commercial space power is beginning to pay dividendsTim Furniss/LONDON India has underscored its determination to become "a space power in the next century" by developing a geostationary satellite launch vehicle (GSLV) with which to enter the international commercial launch market. Not only is ...
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New steps to orbit
With a sixth commercial launch planned by year-end, the Euro-Russian Starsem has hit the market with a bang Tim Furniss/LONDON The Euro-Russian Starsem commercial satellite launcher consortium is an international success story. Starsem plans three more commercial Soyuz launches of 12,450kg (27,400lb) Globalstar low earth orbit (LEO) mobile ...
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Shuttle changes
New cockpits will bring the Shuttle into the space age Tim Furniss/LONDON Milliseconds can make a big difference during a Space Shuttle launch. The faster the crew can react to a problem, the greater possibility of avoiding disaster. That is where "glass cockpits" - cockpits with digital displays - come ...
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Expendable evolution
Expendable launcher makers are trying to keep their concept alive Andrzej Jeziorski/PARIS Amid predictions of a satellite launch boom in the coming decade, space industry executives, financiers and insurers from around the world gathered in Paris in May for the first world summit on the space transportation business. ...
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High concepts, low risk
Private enterprise is driving the future of space transport with a wealth of reusable launch vehicle concepts Andrzej Jeziorski/PARIS From man's earliest forays into space up to the arrival of NASA's Space Shuttle, every launch, manned or unmanned, necessarily destroyed the launch vehicle. Even today, the Shuttle is the only ...
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Discovery paves way for first crew to join the Space Station
Tim Furniss/LONDON The Space Shuttle Discovery landed at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on 6 June after the nine-day, 19h mission STS96 to prepare the International Space Station (ISS) for the first resident crew next March. This date depends on the successful launch in November of Russia's Zvezda ...
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Launch failures prompt Boeing to form review team
Boeing has formed a mission assurance review team to examine the company's Delta, Sea Launch and Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) programmes following recent launch vehicle failures. A Delta III failed this May as did an IUS, aboard a Titan IVB, in April. The team will examine organisational roles ...
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The 747 factfile
The statistics surrounding the 747 go on forever. Here are a few to mull over: * The world's 747 fleet has flown roughly 32 billion km (2.03 billion nm) - equal to flying to the moon and back 42,000 times. * That same fleet has flown 2.2 billion ...
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Starsem wins Mars Express launch contract
Tim Furniss The European Space Agency (ESA) has formally contracted Starsem to launch the Mars Express spacecraft in June 2003 aboard a Soyuz booster from Baikonur. Starsem is a consortium operated by Russian company, Samara, which manufactures the Soyuz, the Russian Space Agency and Europe's Arianespace and Aerospatiale. ...
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NASA orders hybrid Delta for SIRTF launch
NASA has contracted Boeing to supply a hybrid Delta booster to launch its Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF). The booster is a Delta II with the nine large strap-on boosters from the Delta III. This booster is also available to commercial customers for launches of 2,030kg (4,400lb) payloads ...
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Science still the 'pillar' of ESA: Rodota
Tim Furniss Science is still "the pillar" of the European Space Agency (ESA), director general Antonio Rodota said at a press breakfast yesterday. In the "shaping and sharing of the future of European space," science hasn't always received such bullish support but Rodota emphasised its importance when he ...
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MAN develops heat resistant parts for X-38
MAN Technologie is developing high-temperature resistant, ceramics-based, lightweight materials for the NASA X-38 International Space Station emergency return spacecraft. MAN will supply the body flaps and wing leading edges for the X-38, key components in steering the lifting-body craft during its re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere. The material is ...
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Keeping HOPE alive
Japan's HOPE X could be a technology springboard for future RLV programmesAndrzej Jeziorski/TOKYO Japan's efforts to develop future space transportation systems are three pronged. Alongside work to upgrade the nation's expendable launch vehicles and the development of reuseable launcher concepts, the National Space Development Agency (NASDA)and the National Aerospace Laboratory ...
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Space Station award for Hamilton Sundstrand
Tim Furniss Hamilton Sundstrand has won a $115 million contract from NASA to design, develop and qualify water and oxygen generator assemblies for the International Space Station. It will be one of the "largest development programmes undertaken by the company", which will shortly be renamed Hamilton Sundstrand Space ...
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Launch for space mirror planned in 2001
A space mirror orbiting the Earth that could be seen in the night sky by six billion people as a bright star-like object, as bright as the planet Venus, may be launched in 2001. Called the Star of Tolerance, the mirror is a "solar sail" which uses the ...
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Invisible threats from space
THE good news is that astronomers have identified an asteroid that could be on a collision course with Earth. The bad news is that they have lost it. The object, called 1998 OX4, was found last year by a team at the University of Arizona, who tracked it for ...
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Space
Boeing's Delta II team's launch record in 1998 of 14 vehicles and delivering 41 spacecraft to orbit, led to the company to win the Space category award. Judges said the team's work "demonstrated outstanding performance in support of US Government and commercial space programmes". The Delta II ...
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Cosmonauts in bid to save Mir
Russian cosmonauts are battling to keep their country's space programme up in the air by launching a fundraising campaign to raise $100 million to save the Mir space station. Vitaly Sevastyanov and Georgy Titov, veterans of the Soviet space programme, have now asked all Russians to contribute to a ...
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Spain joins Argentina for space project
A high resolution remote sensing satellite is being developed by Spain and Argentina. Called Cesar, the satellite will be launched in 2003 and will be able to transmit 5m resolution images of the Earth, the Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial (INTA) says at Le Bourget. INTA, which is ...
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Boeing delivers vital space station truss
Tim Furniss Boeing delivered a vital component of the International Space Station (ISS) to NASA's Kennedy Space Centre (KSC), Florida on Friday. Called the S-Zero Truss, it will form part of what will eventually be the ISS's girder-like framed crossbeam. The S-Zero will be the first starboard truss ...