All Space news – Page 207
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Space debris
The Aerospace Corporation has established a centre in California for orbital and re-entry debris studies. The centre will analyse space debris, collision-avoidance systems and the possibilities for deliberate re-entry of some debris into the Earth's atmosphere. Source: Flight International
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Confidence boosters
Tim Furniss / Paris The market for launches of communications satellites into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) is heating up. With US/Russian company ILS International Launch Services claiming a 50% share in the commercial-launcher market alongside Arianespace, its European competitor, there is also confusion over just how big the market ...
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Ikonos launch due in December
The Ikonos 1, the first of two remote-sensing satellites being built by Lockheed Martin for Space Imaging EOSAT in Colorado, is scheduled for launch on a Lockheed Martin Launch Vehicle 2 two-stage booster from Vandenberg AFB, California, in December (Flight International, 18-31 December, 1996). The satellite will be used to ...
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Kelly tow method gets patent
Tim Furniss/LONDON Kelly Space and Technology of San Bernardino, California, has been issued a US patent for its towed-launch technique to be used by the company's Eclipse re-usable spaceplane satellite launch system. The plan is to use a Boeing 747 to tow the Eclipse spaceplane to ...
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NASA to build small rover for Japan
NASA will provide a small robotic rover to conduct in-situ measurements of the surface of the asteroid Nereus in September 2003. Nereus is a 1.5km- diameter near-Earth asteroid. The rover will be aboard the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science's Muses C spacecraft, to be launched on ...
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NASA plans mission to investigate Sun's corona
A spacecraft could fly within 2.72 million kilometres (1.7 million miles) of the Sun in July 2007 as part of a series of new interplanetary space missions being studied by NASA. The Solar Probe, protected against high temperatures by a large umbrella-like heatshield, would be used to explore ...
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Aerospatiale to build Soyuz dispenser
Starsem, the joint French and Russian company which markets the Soyuz booster for commercial launches, has awarded a contract to Aerospatiale of France to build the payload dispenser designed for launches of satellite constellations. The 400kg "intelligent" dispenser will be used to carry four Loral Globalstar mobile-communications satellites ...
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Space Station solar-array model tested
Lockheed Martin Missiles and Space has completed the engineering model of the first of eight planned photovoltaic solar arrays for the International Space Station, to be launched on a Space Shuttle in March 1999. The eight-array system will supply 264kW of power. The 33m-long engineering model has been extended and ...
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ADEOS monitoring satellite disappears in Earth orbit
Tim Furniss/LONDON Japan's global environmental-monitoring spacecraft, the Advanced Earth Observing Satellite (ADEOS), carrying a suite of NASA instruments, has been lost in Earth orbit. Trouble began in June, when the craft failed to respond to commands, and later a signal was detected indicating that it was ...
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Allied on Kistler
AlliedSignal Aerospace will supply the vehicle-management system (VMS) for the Kistler K-1 reusable launch vehicle. Each VMS will include computer, power control unit, transponder, antenna and integration platform. The Kistler launch system is intended to place 4,000kg payloads into low-Earth orbit (Flight International, 23-29 October, 1996). Source: Flight ...
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Arianespace keeps up monthly launch rate
Arianespace completed its 26th launch in 26 months on 25 June when an Ariane 44P carried the Intelsat 802 communications satellite into geostationary transfer orbit from the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou, French Guiana. The European commercial launcher company's next launch is due on 7 August, carrying the ...
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First Space Station modules prepared for 1998 launch
Tim Furniss/LONDON With the first elements of the International Space Station (ISS) due to be launched in a little under 12 months, the USA and Russia, the two leading members of the international consortium building the Station, have begun to reveal progress the initial modules scheduled to be ...
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Progress will go to aid Mir crew
Tim Furniss/LONDON The Progress M35 unmanned cargo craft is scheduled to be launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan around 10 July in the first phase of an operation to restore conditions to near-normal aboard the Russian Mir space station. The launch follows the collision on 25 June ...
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ESA will propose a rescue vehicle for Space Station
Tim Furniss/PARIS A European Space Agency (ESA) Council of Ministers meeting in the middle of 1998 is to decide whether to go ahead with the development of a Crew Transport Vehicle (CTV) capsule or a new proposal of a lifting-body Crew Rescue Vehicle (CRV), for use in the ...
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Pathfinder is poised for historic landing
NASA's ambitious plans for a series of Mars Surveyor landers and orbiters, leading to a sample return mission in 2005, depend upon a successful touchdown of the Mars Pathfinder at Ares Vallis on 4 July. The landing site is at the outflow at the bottom of a valley ...
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Space link
United Space Alliance and Spacehab have agreed jointly to develop commercial markets for the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station. United operates the Space Shuttle for NASA, while Spacehab operates habitable extension modules in the Shuttle's mid-deck. The firms will focus on expanding the non-government market for life and ...
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Small is beautiful
Tim Furniss/GUILDFORD When the UK's UoSAT 1 microsatellite was launched in 1984, the project was run by a small team of engineers and graduates in the University of Surrey at Guildford, in the UK. Today that team is Surrey Satellite Technology Limited (SSTL), a world leader in the ...
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The great escape
An SSTL-built satellite made history in 1996 as the first officially registered surviving victim of a space-debris impact. The Cerise microsatellite bus, made for Alcatel Espace and the French ministry of defence, was launched into a 700km polar orbit in July 1995, riding piggyback on the Ariane 40 ...
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Propulsion pioneers
SSTL is also engaged in the development of its own spacecraft-propulsion system. The company has recognised that the lack of an on-board propulsion system has prevented it from exploiting fully the potential of its micro/minisatellite fleet. The company has certainly pioneered the use of small craft to conduct ...