All Space news – Page 221
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Russians delay final Mir module launch
THE NEXT LONG-duration flight by a US astronaut aboard the Russian Mir 1 space station will be marred by a delay in the launch of a new Russian module in which US experiments will be conducted. The much-delayed launch of the Priroda module - the last to be ...
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Trying tether
THERE HAVE been four previous attempts at tethered flight between space vehicles. The abortive TSS 1 attempt in 1992 took place 26 years after the previous attempt aboard the Gemini 12. The first tethered flight took place during the sixth manned spaceflight, NASA's Mercury Atlas 7/Aurora 7, ...
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X-34 programme halted
ORBITAL SCIENCES (OSC) and Rockwell have stopped design work on the X-34B launcher project, although NASA, which is partially funding the work, has not yet cancelled the programme. The choice of propulsion system for the X-34B, which was to have been launched atop a Boeing 747 NASA Shuttle ...
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Near thing
NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft will be launched aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta 2 booster from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 16 February. The NEAR will enter orbit around the asteroid Eros in 1999 (Flight International, 17-23 January). Also planned for 16 February launches are China's first Long March ...
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Space and missiles
Winner: Matra Marconi Space Location: Stevenage, UK. Achievement: Success, both commercial and technical, of the versatile Eurostar communications satellite platform. In 1995, Matra Marconi Space began to reap the rewards of its long-term investment in the Eurostar communications-satellite platform. New orders have continued to roll in during ...
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Near thing
NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft will be launched aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta 2 booster from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 16 February. The NEAR will enter orbit around the asteroid Eros in 1999. Source: Flight International
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Launch gets right to the point
THE ACCURATE LAUNCH of a Lockheed Martin Atlas 2AS booster in December 1995 has ensured that the European Space Agency's (ESA) Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) will be operational for at least 20 years, rather than six years as originally planned, says ESA. The satellite will reach its operational ...
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Crew selection
A US astronaut and Russian cosmonaut have been named as part of the three-man crew to become the first to inhabit the International Space Station in May 1998. NASA mission specialist William Shepherd, Russia's Sergei Krikalev and an as-yet-unnamed Russian commander will be launched aboard a Soyuz TM spacecraft ...
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X-34 Halted
A US astronaut and Russian cosmonaut have been named as part of the three-man crew to become the first to inhabit the International Space Station in May 1998. NASA mission specialist William Shepherd, Russia's Sergei Krikalev and an as-yet-unnamed Russian commander will be launched aboard a Soyuz TM spacecraft from ...
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JPL engineers fit key flight hardware to Cassini craft
NASA JET PROPULSION Laboratory (JPL) engineers at Pasadena, California have completed installation of key flight hardware aboard the Cassini spacecraft, which will be launched towards Saturn, by a Titan 4/Centaur booster in October 1997. The craft's attitude- and articulation-control subsystem was integrated, together with the power and pyrotechnics ...
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Robot-arm contract
Canada's Spar Space Systems has been awarded a $4.2 million contract from NASA to produce three remote manipulators to assist in the assembly of the US-led Alpha international space station. The Power Data Grapple Fixtures are the mechanical and electrical attachments, or "shoulders", of Spar's remote-manipulator system robot arm. ...
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Galileo data delight NASA but scupper scientists' theories
Tim Furniss/LONDON THE DESIGNERS of NASA's Galileo probe have been vindicated after 57min of data were returned from the craft as it descended through the predominantly hydrogenous atmosphere of Jupiter on 7 December. The data, however, disappointed scientists, who had been expecting them to reveal far more ...
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Pegasus XL to try again
ORBITAL SCIENCES (OSC) will attempt to launch its Pegasus XL booster, carrying the US Air Force REX 2 satellite, during a 30-day launch window starting on 29 February. The first launch attempt failed on 22 June, 1995.after human error during assembly led to the improper installation of one ...
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Maiden flight planned for Japan's J1 launcher
JAPAN'S J1 solid-propellant launch vehicle will make its maiden flight from Tanegashima on 7 February. The two-stage version of the new satellite launcher will carry the Hyflex hypersonics flight-experiment space plane on a sub-orbital flight. A later three-stage J1, built by the National Space Development Agency, will be ...
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Endeavour succeeds
NASA's first Space Shuttle mission of 1996, the STS72/Endeavour, ended with a safe landing at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida on 20 January, after a successful eight day 22h flight, which included two space walks, gaining NASA 24h of space walk experience, in preparation for the assembly of the Alpha ...
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Dynamic overshoot
Ten years after the Challenger accident, there is still argument over a phenomenon called dynamic overshoot. Tim Furniss/Washington DC IF NASA ERRED IN DESIGNING the Space Shuttle, its hypersensitive reaction to the term "dynamic overshoot" and to the name of Ali AbuTaha, who conducted an independent ...
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Ariane/Delta kick off busy schedule
Tim Furniss/LONDON ARIANE AND DELTA boosters have been used to start what promises to be the busiest year ever for commercial launches, with three satellites for Malaysia, South Korea and US company PanAmSat being placed in orbit on 12 and 14 January, respectively. Over 25 other geostationary communications satellites are ...
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New study qualifies Shuttle risk assessment
A STUDY FOR NASA by New York-based Science Applications International research group puts the risk of a catastrophic failure of the Space Shuttle at one in 248 flights, compared with one in 78 in 1988 when the Space Shuttle returned to flight after the Challenger accident. NASA's internal estimate of ...
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Shuttle launch seen from U-2
UNIQUE high-resolution bird's-eye views of a Space Shuttle launch were taken from a Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft circling over the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at an altitude of 20,000ft (6,100m), 8km (4nm) clear of the Shuttle's flight path. NASA commissioned the recently released photographs of the STS30/Atlantis launch on 4 ...
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Shuttle launch
The first of eight planned Space Shuttle missions in 1996, the STS72/Endeavour was launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida on 11 January on a planned nine-day flight. A six man crew, including, the first Japanese NASA mission specialist Kiochi Wakata, were scheduled to deploy a Spartan research satellite and ...