All Space news – Page 212
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NASA again curbs funding request-
NASA has kept its budget request for 1998 down to $13.5 billion as it continues to seek lower, but more stable, funding over the next five years. The space agency, which has agreed this approach with the White House, has asked for a $13.7 billion budget this year ...
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-while Russia pledges fresh cash for the ISS
Better news has emerged for Russia's space industry, with the Russian Government pledging an immediate $100 million to pay overdue funds to the International Space Station (ISS) project, and the Khrunichev space-manufacturing concern securing a $36 million loan to support its Proton booster production work. The new cash ...
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Moving production
Italy's Alenia Aerospazio has turned satellite manufacturing on its head at its new Centro Piccoli Satelliti (Small Satellite Centre) in Tiburtina, Rome. In a conventional production centre, satellites are generally built at a central point, with teams of different engineers coming and going, adding new components as they are manufactured. ...
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EAS invitation
The European Space Agency (ESA) has invited the first proposals from European scientists to conduct scientific, technological and applications experiments aboard the Columbus Orbital Facility on the International Space Station in about 2002. Source: Flight International
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Alenia invests in ecology
THE ITALIAN Government has appropriated $40 million funding to allow Alenia Aerospazio's Space division to begin the development of a proposed remote-sensing-satellite system to monitor and manage the ecology and environment of the Mediterranean region. The project has so far also won the support of Spain and Greece. ...
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Kistler awarded $100 million launch contract
Kistler Aerospace has received a boost for its plans to develop the K-1 satellite launch vehicle with a contract from Space Systems/Loral to launch ten communications satellites into low-Earth orbit between 1999 and 2002 (Flight International, 23-29 October, 1996). The likely payloads are Gloabalstar mobile-communications satellites. Kistler of ...
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Higher orbit
The US company CTA Space Systems, of McLean, Virginia, is making its first venture into the lightweight geostationary orbit (GEO) communications satellite market. It is building the Indostar 1 satellite for PT Mediacitra of Indonesia. This first direct broadcast satellite (DBS) dedicated to television transmissions for a single ...
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Third orion
Hughes Space and Communications has been awarded a contract from Orion Asia Pacific to build the ten C-band, 33 Ku-band transponder Orion 3 communications satellite, an HS-601HP model, which will be launched aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta 3 booster into a 139í position in geostationary orbit in 1998 (Flight International, ...
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Russia worries about space station role
Yuri Koptev, director-general of the Russian Space Agency, has admitted that his country could be ousted from the International Space Station (ISS). The Russian energy module, the first element of the ISS, has been completed and will be launched on 27 November, but other hardware is behind schedule because of ...
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Weight saver
A new Space Shuttle external tank (ET) will be used for the first time in December 1997, fitted to the STS88/ Endeavour, the first assembly mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The tank will be 3,400kg lighter than the original ET, adding an equivalent weight to the amount of ...
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Solar storm is suspected in Telstar 401 satellite loss
NASA scientists at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland, believe that a Solar storm on 6 January created enough geomagnetic activity to knock out the AT&T's Telstar 401 communications satellite in geostationary orbit (GEO) on 11 January. The satellite is a total loss (Flight International, 22-28 January). The ...
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Message to Saturn
The European Space Agency (ESA) is inviting members of the European public to write and sign short personal messages for a CD-ROM to be fitted to the Huygens probe scheduled to be flown towards the planet Saturn in October and land on the ringed-planet's moon, Titan, in 2002. ...
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NASA plans interim module for Space Station
NASA IS TO build its own Interim Control Module in an attempt to reduce the effect of the delay in the production of the Russian Service Module for the International Space Station (ISS) (Flight International, 18-31 December, 1996). The Service Module, the third major component of the ISS, ...
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OSC contracts to launch Kompsat
The contract between Korea Aerospace and Orbital Sciences (OSC) to launch in 1999 the TRW-built Kompsat multipurpose satellite aboard a Taurus booster from Vandenberg AFB, California, has been formally signed. The Taurus has been flown just once (in 1994), but OSC has two firm contracts for launches on ...
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'Abrupt failure' results in loss of second Telstar 4 satellite
AT&T Skynet says that its Telstar 401 satellite experienced an abrupt failure of its telemetry and communications on 11 January. It is the second in-flight loss of this spacecraft series. The company restored services to only those 401customers whose contracts called for transfer of their transponder services, to ...
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Arianespace 'record' boosted by Ariane 4
Arianespace is claiming an "absolute record" for launch operations during 1996, despite the loss of the first of the European Space Agency's (ESA) new Ariane 5 heavy launchers on a mid-year maiden flight. The Ariane 4 operation involved an unbroken string of ten successful launches, placing 15 satellites ...
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Mercury could be target for fifth Discovery
NASA will make a final decision in April whether to launch the Hermes Global Orbiter spacecraft to map the planet Mercury as the fifth mission in the Discovery series. The Hermes has been proposed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California and spacecraft-builder Spectrum Astro in Arizona. The ...
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EELV engine passes key test
Full-scale propellant injector and thrust-chamber tests of the first-stage engine of the McDonnell Douglas (MDC) Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle (EELV) candidate vehicle have been completed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama, marking a major milestone in the programme. The 2,850kN (640,500lb)-thrust RS-68 liquid-oxygen/liquid-hydrogen (LOX/LH) cryogenic main engine ...
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Russia details 1997 launch programme
Funding permitting, Russia plans to launch 28 boosters in 1997, carrying a variety of satellites into orbit. These will include three manned Soyuz TM and four unmanned Progress M tankers to the Mir 1 space station. At least three commercial Proton launches are scheduled, starting with the flight ...
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Joint endeavours
Col Ben Robinson, commander of the USAir Force's 93rd Air Expeditionary Group (Provisional) says: "We shoot no missiles; we carry no cargo; our only product is information; and information dominance is the key to success." The system which brings so much to the modern battlefield without firing a shot is ...