All Space news – Page 219
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Orbital
US Space and information-systems company Orbital Sciences, of Dulles, Virginia, has appointed Jeffrey Pirone acting chief financial officer, following the resignation of Carlton Crenshaw, executive vice-president and chief financial officer. Pirone, now vice-president and controller, will hold the position until the post is filled permanently. Source: ...
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Priroda docking completes the Mir 1 space station
THE CONSTRUCTION of the Russian Mir 1 space station was completed on 26 April when the Priroda Earth-observation module was docked to the orbital space base after launch aboard a Proton SL-13 on 23 April. The 19,700kg Priroda - originally scheduled to have been launched in 1990 ...
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The X-Prize
US President Bill Clinton has been urged by Congressional space-supporters - led by Republican Richard Gephardt - to encourage the work of the X-Prize Foundation. The Foundation has been established to find private benefactors to fund a $10 million award to the first private team to build a re-useable spacecraft ...
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The X-prize
The X-Prize Foundation, has been established to find private benefactors, to provide $10 million funding to award to the first private team, to build a re-useable space craft to carry three people on a sub-orbital space-flight, "...doing for space what the Orteig Prize, "won by Lindbergh" did for aviation", say ...
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Hole in the budget layer
NASA's efforts to demonstrate the USA's commitment to the worldwide effort to monitor the Earth's environment are under threat. Tim Furniss/GREENBELT, MARYLAND SINCE 1992, NASA'S EARTH Observing System (EOS) programme has had its $16 billion budget to the year 2000 cut by 50%. A further ...
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The first EOS missions
SCIENTISTS HAVE identified seven primary research areas, specifically for the EOS programme, to understand the Earth's climate more fully and the effect the human race has had on it: the role of clouds, radiation, water vapour and rain; the productivity of the oceans, their circulation ...
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Rockwell regains Navstar initiative
Tim Furniss/LONDON ROCKWELL International has won back work to build US Air Force Navstar global-positioning- system (GPS) satellites. The California-based company has now won 73 of the 93 Navstar contracts let by USAF. Up to 33 Navstar Block 2F spacecraft will be built by Rockwell ...
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Loral wins more PanAmSats
SPACE SYSTEMS/LORAL has been selected to build two additional satellites for PanAmSat. The PanAmSats (PAS) 7 and 8 will be launched into geostationary-transfer orbit en route to positions in geostationary orbit over the Indian and Pacific oceans by an Ariane and an ILS International Launch Services Proton in 1997-8. ...
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Ariane Launch
Ariane flight V85, using a 42P model of the booster series, was launched on 21 April, from Kourou, French Guiana, placing the 2,855kg MSAT-1 satellite into orbit. From its position at 106.5°W in geostationary orbit, the Hughes HS-601 space craft, equipped with two light-weight 5.1 x 5.7m oval springback antennae, ...
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Russian roulette
Cash-starved Russia could be ousted from the Alpha International Space Station project. Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA ASTRONAUT SHANNON Lucid is now aboard the Russian space station Mir 1, having been delivered on the third Shuttle Mir Mission (SMM). Fellow astronaut Bill Shepherd, due to fly with two ...
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MMS wins sixth Eurostar contract in six months
Tim Furniss/LONDON MATRA MARCONI SPACE (MMS) has been awarded a contract to build the Hot Bird 5 direct-broadcast communications satellite for Eutelsat, the European telecommunications-satellite operator. A launcher for the 1998 lift-off has not yet been selected. The company built the Hot Bird 1 (launched in ...
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Hughes pushes satellite-navigation service
HUGHES Telecommunications and Space (HTS) is to continue to pursue development of civil satellite-based augmentation to the global-positioning system (GPS), despite a rebuff from Inmarsat with its decision not to invest in navigation payloads for its new-generation ICO global communications satellites. Although Inmarsat, has declared its lack ...
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Alliance takes over Shuttle
THE LOCKHEED Martin/ Rockwell United Space Alliance has assumed responsibility for the Shuttle Processing Contract (SPC) and the Space Operations Contract (SOC), in the first step towards becoming NASA's prime contractor for launch processing and operations for the Space Shuttle fleet (Flight International, 28 February-5 March). The SPC ...
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Dornier trains Orfeus-Spas II crew
DORNIER SATELLITE Systems has been training the crew of November's STS80 Space Shuttle mission to handle Germany's retrievable Astro-Spas (Shuttle Pallet Satellite) with the Orfeus (Orbital Retrievable Far and Extreme Ultraviolet Spectrometer) telescope. The 14-day mission, to be known as the Orfeus-Spas II, will be the second deployment ...
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Russia enters commercial age with launch of Proton SL-12
Tim Furniss/LONDON RUSSIA OFFICIALLY entered the commercial geostationary-orbit-satellite launcher business on 8 April, when a Proton SL-12 model was launched successfully from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying the Astra 1F satellite for Luxembourg's Societe Europeenne des Satellites (SES). The launch was managed by ILS ...
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Third success is achieved for Shuttle-Mir programme
THE SPACE Shuttle STS76/Atlantis landed at Edwards AFB, California, on 31 March after the successful third Shuttle Mir Mission (SMM). The Atlantis, launched on 22 March, docked with the Russian Mir 1 space station, delivering US astronaut Shannon Lucid to the station to undertake a 143-day flight ...
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Alpha will host anti-matter experiment
NASA AND THE US Department of Energy (DoE) have agreed to fly an anti-matter experiment on the Alpha International Space Station. The experiment will be developed by a team led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The DoE-sponsored state-of-the-art Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) physics experiment will look for ...
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Asia Pacific space booms with three satellite orders
Tim Furniss/LONDON THE ASIA PACIFIC region's space-communications business has taken a big stride with the award of $440 million-worth of contracts to build three satellites. Singapore and Taiwan have awarded a $240 million deal to Matra Marconi Space (MMS) to build the ST-1 communications satellite ...
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Holding out
Israel Military Industries is looking for partners in adesperate effort to restore its fortunes. Arie Egozi/TEL AVIV ISRAEL MILITARY Industries' new president and chief executive Shlomo Milo is looking at new ways to slim the business after an often painful rationalisation programme failed to return the company ...
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Japan sets lower space goals but stays in Alpha
Tim Furniss/LONDON JAPAN IS TO SCALE back its space programme, setting more realistic short-term goals, with less emphasis on long-term national manned-space-flight aspirations and more on unmanned satellites and planetary exploration. The Government has endorsed a study, Fundamental Policy of Japan's Space Activities, which confirms ...