All Space news – Page 194
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SGS wins $2.2bn basing deal
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA and the US Air Force have awarded a joint contract to Space Gateway Support (SGS) of Virginia, to provide base operations from 1 October at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The Joint Base Operations Support Contract (JBOSC), which ...
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Grace launcher
Two joint NASA/German Gravity Recovery Climate Experiment GRACE satellites will be launched in 2001 by Eurockot, the joint Russian/German launcher organisation which markets the Russian Rokot low earth orbit satellite launcher. The contract will bring to eight the number of satellites manifested for three commercial Rokot launches. Two launches will ...
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Skynet 5 goes national
European military space integration has been ditched by the UKTim Furniss/LONDON The UK is to develop a new generation of military communications satellites rather than enter the Trimilsatcom collaborative programme with France and Germany (Flight International, 19-25 August). When he announced the Ministry of Defence decision on 12 August, Lord ...
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Hughes clears HS-601 satellites
Tim Furniss/LONDON Hughes has cleared the Galaxy X and Astra 2A satellites for launch after completing investigations into the failure of space control processors aboard three HS-601 model communications satellites. The failure resulted in the total loss of Galaxy IV and the loss of the primary processor systems on ...
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Japan calls off new attempt to dock orbiting spacecraft
Failure to dock the Japanese Orihime and Hikoboshi spacecraft in orbit on 13-14 August was the result of attitude control difficulties. The cause was either a jammed thruster, software or electronic errors, say officials in Tokyo. The two spacecraft had successfully undertaken rendezvous and station-keeping manoeuvres as part of ...
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USAF plans further manoeuvre vehicle tests
Further drop tests in the US Air Force Space Manoeuvre Vehicle (SMV) programme are planned, including a suborbital rocket engine boosted test flight in 2001, following the successful first drop-test of a 6.7m-long flight test vehicle on 11 August (Flight International, 19-25 August). A fully developed operational SMV would provide ...
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Spare module
Russia's Khrunichev company has revealed that it has built a back-up Control Module for the International Space Station (ISS) in case the prime module is lost in a launch failure when the ISS programme kicks off with a Proton flight on 20 November. The backup module could be used later ...
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Beluga ferries ISS components
An Airbus A300-600ST Beluga has been contracted to assist NASA with the transportation of components for the International Space Station (ISS). The Beluga, which is operated by the consortium's cargo airline division, Airbus Transport Inter- national, transported an 18,200kg (40,000lb) Mini Pressurized Logistic Module between Alenia Spazio's plant in Turin, ...
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Cold war logic ?
Ousting 40 Russian and Ukrainian engineers from the USA after suspending Boeing's licence to participate in an international satellite launcher project smacks of a return by the US Administration to outdated insular industrial and technology policies founded on national economic and security interests. Ironically, though, the State Department's decision to ...
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Economic booster
Tim Furniss/LONDON Development of an improved version of Japan's H-2 booster is a reflection of the country's determination to cut the production costs of its satellite launchers, to enable it to compete in the growing commercial launch market. Japan will not know how successful this bid is until 2001, ...
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Shuttle threat
The US Clinton Administration is willing to cancel planned non-International Space Station (ISS) shuttle flights to absorb cost overruns on the ISS, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget. Only one non-ISS Shuttle flight, to deploy the Advanced X-Ray Astrophysics Facility, is scheduled for 1999, when a ...
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X Plane progress
The first wing assembly for NASA's Orbital Sciences-built X-34 spaceplane technology demonstrator has been completed in a major milestone towards the first air-launched flights next year. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, meanwhile, has invited proposals for Future X vehicles as part of the continued series of demonstrators to validate technologies ...
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Station approaches
Tim Furniss/LONDON Late this month, technicians at NASA's Space Station Processing Facility (SSPF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida, will begin interlinking International Space Station (ISS) components for one of the largest test operations ever conducted by the space agency. The test will imitate the assembly in orbit of ...
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Alenia delivers the first logistics module for space station
Tim Furniss/LONDON The first of three Italian Space Agency reusable Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules (MPLM) destined for the International Space Station (ISS), has now arrived at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The MPLM 1 is scheduled to be carried on the Space Shuttle STS 100/Endeavour in December 1999. ...
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Cosmonaut added to ISS Shuttle crew
Russia's Sergei Krikalev has been added to the crew of the STS88 Space Shuttle Endeavour mission set to be launched in December. It will be the first US International Space Station assembly mission to dock the US Unity Node 1 to the Russian Zarya Control module. The Russian module is ...
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Next Soyuz to be launched on credit
TIM FURNISS/LONDON The three-man Soyuz mission to the Mir space station on 13 August is being launched on credit worth $33 million after a Russian Government pledge to provide $120 million to Energia failed to materialise, says the company's director general Yuri Semenov. The space station's remaining time ...
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Russian promise
Ian Sheppard/LONDON A worldwide observation campaign to define more precisely the characteristics of the Russian Glonass satellite navigation system will run from September to December this year. It will be conducted by the geodetic community, which is relying on combining the Glonass with the US global positioning system (GPS) to ...
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Celestial Internet
Tim Furniss/LONDON Of all the advances in satellite communications since Telstar, the most interest is being created by the $9 billion Teledesic programme. Now that Teledesic has assembled a powerful industrial team to build and launch its 300-satellite constellation, the project is moving into high gear. Teledesic's copyrighted "Internet in ...
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Satellite bug delays launches
Tim Furniss/LONDON The launch of at least two Hughes Space and Communications HS-601-based satellites have been delayed following control processor failures aboard the similar DBS1 and Galaxy 4 and 7 spacecraft in geostationary orbit from May to July (Flight International, 22-28 July). The JC-SAT 6, scheduled for launch on 29 ...
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Rotary Rocket starts construction of the first Roton parts
Construction of the first parts of Rotary Rocket's Roton commercial space vehicle is under way, kicking off an ambitious development schedule aimed at achieving initial flight tests by the middle of 1999. The first elements of the Roton, an unpiloted, unmanned, re-useable single stage to orbit (SSTO) launch vehicle, are ...