All Space news – Page 202
-
News
First Mars soil samples to be collected
NASA's plans for the Mars Surveyor Orbiter 2 and Lander 2 missions, to be launched in 2001, include the collection of the first samples of Martian soil to be brought back to Earth on a later mission. The Orbiter 2 and Lander 2 missions will follow the Mars Surveyor Orbiter ...
-
News
Spacehab wins new NASA contract
Spacehab of Vienna, Virginia, which leases pressurised Spacehab modules to NASA for missions on the Space Shuttle, has been awarded a $42 million contract from the US space agency to provide modules for three Shuttle missions to support the assembly of the International Space Station (ISS). A further $19 ...
-
News
Mir inspection has to be abandoned
The remote-controlled flight of the Daimler-Benz Aerospace (Dasa) Inspector free-flying satellite around the Russian Mir 1 space station on 17 December had to be abandoned on safety grounds after the vehicle suffered a suspected star-sensor failure. The 1m-long, 72kg Inspector was unable to point towards its planned targets of ...
-
News
Forecasts 98': Space
Tim Furniss/LONDON At long last, assembly of the International Space Station (ISS) is expected to start in 1998. Six years later than originally planned, the first component is to be launched in June, marking the beginning the realisation of a programme initiated by USPresident Ronald Reagan in 1984. Reagan could ...
-
News
AsiaSat 3 drifts in space after failure of Proton upper stage
Tim Furniss/LONDON The Hughes-built AsiaSat 3 communications satellite was left drifting in a useless orbit after the the failure of the fourth stage of the Russian Proton K booster which launched it from Baikonur on 24 December. It was the first failure suffered by the US/Russian ILS International ...
-
News
Arianespace makes claim for independence
Tim Furniss/LONDON Arianespace, the European commercial-launcher organisation, says that moves to integrate it further with European aerospace companies could result in a conflict of commercial interest with some potential customers. The company, which is likely to become fully privatised in 1998, says that stronger links with European satellite ...
-
News
European manned space hopes dashed
European manned space hopes dashed France has effectively killed off the European Space Agency's (ESA) plans to create an independent manned-spaceflight capability. The French Government says that it will pull out of ESA's proposed Ariane 5-launched Crew Transfer Vehicle project to support the International Space Station (ISS), for ...
-
News
ESA will build nodes for space station
The European Space Agency (ESA) has assigned to Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) the management of a project to build two new nodes for the NASA-led International Space Station (ISS). ASI replaces Boeing, which is building the first ISS Node. The Nodes 2 and 3, which connect modules of the ...
-
News
Space Shuttle Mir mission is delayed
The launch of the penultimate Space Shuttle Mir mission, the STS89/Endeavour, will now be delayed by about a week from 15 January as the result of a the request from Russia. Two cosmonauts aboard the Mir space station, with US astronaut David Wolf, need to complete three spacewalks and ...
-
News
Fastrac test
The low-cost ($1 million) Fastrac liquid-oxygen/ kerosene-burning, 265kN (60,000lb)-thrust engine which will power the Orbital Sciences X-34 re-usable launch vehicle technology demonstrator air-launched spaceplane has undergone critical-component tests at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama, says NASA. The X-34 is to begin a series of 25 flights, reaching Mach 8 ...
-
News
Seventh Proton blast-off Khrunichev figures
Tim Furniss/LONDON Khrunichev's Proton K/DM booster had its seventh commercial launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on 3 December. The Russian company says that it hopes to earn $850 million from its Proton satellite launcher business, covering 22 flights in the five years between 1996 and 2000. The launch mirrors ...
-
News
TRW has to delay delivery of AXAF
The launch of NASA's third Great Observatory spacecraft, the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), aboard the Space Shuttle STS93/Columbia, scheduled for August 1998, will be postponed, possibly by "several months", because main contractor TRW has experienced delays in "assembly and testing". International Space Station Shuttle flights scheduled later in 1998 ...
-
News
Satellite Launcher directory
Tim Furniss/LONDON The success of the European Space Agency-funded demonstration launch of the Ariane 502 in October buoyed the European space industry after the calamitous failure of the 501 in June 1996. Assuming a successful 503 demonstration flight in May, the Ariane 5 will be taken over by Arianespace ...
-
News
Spaceball camera makes debut on Columbia
NASA's first test flight of the $3 million spherical Aercam Sprint robotic camera has been completed from the Space Shuttle Columbia STS87. Like the German-built Inspector craft which will be evaluated outside the Russian Mir space station this month, an uprated version of the Sprint will be used during International ...
-
News
Mars Express plan gathers support
The European Space Agency's (ESA) Science Programme Committee has endorsed the preliminary stage in the development of the Mars Express mission. The craft will enter orbit around the Red Planet and deposit up to four landers on the surface after launch on a Russian Soyuz U booster scheduled for 2003 ...
-
News
Dasa delivers first European ISS component to Russia
Daimler-Benz Aerospace (Dasa) has delivered the first European component of the International Space Station (ISS) to Russian partner RSC Energia. The Bremen-based Space Infrastructure unit of Dasa has handed over the computer and software for the Data Management System - Russia (DMS-R), a control, navigation and data-processing centre for ...
-
News
Dasa plans commercial Eureca
Andrzej Jeziorski/MUNICH Daimler-Benz Aerospace (Dasa) is planning to launch a commercially funded industrial-applications mission using the free-flying, retrievable Eureca space platform from the US Space Shuttle in 2000. A European Space Agency-funded flight of the German-built Eureca, equipped with 71 different experiments, was conducted in 1992-3 after deployment ...
-
News
X-38 orbital and re-entry test planned for 2001
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA's X-38 crew-emergency-return vehicle (CERV) for the International Space Station (ISS) will have its first orbital and re-entry flight test in 2001. The vehicle prototype is undergoing atmospheric flight tests from a NASA Boeing B-52 operating from Edwards AFB, California, (Flight International, 18-24 June). Glide flights ...
-
News
Ariane roll
The European Space Agency says that the cause of the "roll torque" experienced by the Ariane 502 launcher on 30 October, resulting in it reaching a lower-than-planned orbit, was an unexpected reaction to the separation of the solid-rocket boosters. The attempt to recover the boosters in the sea, as planned, ...
-
News
On the ball
NASA has selected Ball Aerospace, of Colorado, to build the first spacecraft in its rapid-delivery satellite programme, in which eight companies were awarded initial contracts to prepare for work on "catalogue" craft (Flight International, 22-28 October). The Quick Scatterometer, QuickScat ,will be launched by a Titan 2 from Vandenberg AFB, ...