All Space news – Page 222
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Running Wild
NASA has now selected the fourth mission in its new Discovery interplanetary space programme. Tim Furniss/WASHINGTON DC IN JANUARY 2006, A SMALL Discovery series spacecraft is scheduled to return to Earth after a journey across interplanetary space. The craft will contain a precious cargo of ...
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Chip off the new block
NASA's New Millennium programme will create new technologies for future missions. Tim Furniss/WASHINGTON DC NASA SAYS THAT ITS NEW WAY of doing things is "smaller, faster, better, cheaper". The US space agency's $100 million-a-year "New Millenium" programme is directed especially at achieving the "smaller and ...
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The New Millennium man
DANIEL GOLDIN, NASA administrator, initiated the New Millenium programme. "It started in 1994 when I went out to California and had dinner with Ed Stone, the director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Wes Huntress, NASA's head of science. I said we needed an order-of-magnitude improvement by the next decade. ...
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Second LM2E success gives China a boost
Tim Furniss/LONDON CHINA'S LONG MARCH 2E (LM2E) booster had its second successful launch within 30 days on 28 December, 1995, when it carried the Lockheed Martin-built US Echostar 1 direct-broadcasting communications satellite into geostationary transfer orbit. The Asiasat 2, also built by Lockheed Martin, was launched ...
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X-Ray Explorer is launched
NASA's X-RAY TIMING Explorer satellite (XTE) was launched into low-Earth orbit by a Delta 2/7920 booster from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on 30 December, 1995, after a series of technical faults had delayed the mission by four months. The 3,040kg XTE will be used for a two-year, in-depth, timing ...
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Busy MIR
As the Progress M30 tanker was launched to the Mir 1 space station on 18 December, the Russian space agency said that the 1996 schedule for the station will include launches of the final module, the Priroda; four Progress M tankers; three manned Soyuz TMs; and three docking flights by ...
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Plowshare's share
Plowshare Technology of Horsham in the UK, will be European agent for Cosmos USA, marketing launches of the Russian Cosmos booster for journeys into low-Earth orbit (LEO). Cosmos USA consists of Assured Space Access of Arlington, Virginia and Russia's Polyot Experimental Design Bureau in Omsk. Source: Flight ...
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Flying backwards
A return-to-launch-site abort would test the Space Shuttle to its limits. Tim Furniss/WASHINGTON DC BRYAN O'CONNOR, FORMER Space Shuttle commander and now director of the Shuttle programme at NASA's headquarters says, "To a pilot, it's a crazy bunch of attitudes." He is describing the procedure for a ...
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Spaceflight
Tim Furniss/Spaceflight Correspondent A SERIES OF SATELLITE launchers will have their debuts in 1996, but perhaps the most significant will come in April as the European Space Agency's (ESA) Ariane 5 has its maiden demonstration flight. The Ariane 5 will have a second demonstration flight ...
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Atlas record
Lockheed Martin launched its record 12th Atlas vehicle of 1995 on 15 December, carrying the Hughes Galaxy 3R into geostationary transfer orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Atlas 2A was the 11th deep space launch of the year - matching Arianespace's 1995 launch rate. The 12th operation was a polar-orbital ...
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OSC completes
Orbital Sciences (OSC) has completed its stock-swap acquisition of Canada's MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates, a leading supplier of commercial space remote-sensing ground-stations. Source: Flight International
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Space offers
The USA has invited Israel to fly an astronaut aboard a Space Shuttle mission as part of a joint space agreement between the USA and Israel. Russia has also invited South Africa to fly an astronaut on a Soyuz TM visiting mission to the Mir 1 space station. South Korea ...
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Trailblazers
NASA plans a series of low-cost, but ambitious, flights to Mars, starting in 1996. Tim Furniss/WASHINGTON DC A NEW ERA IN Martian exploration will begin in December 1996, when a McDonnell Douglas Delta 2 booster will launch the Mars Pathfinder, to blaze a fresh trail to the ...
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Galileo probe transmits data from Jupiter's atmosphere
Tim Furniss/LONDON THE 340kg GALILEO probe plunged into the atmosphere of Jupiter on 7 December at a latitude of about 6¡N, and at an initial speed of 170,000km/h. It was the first man-made contact with the planet. The main spacecraft became the first to enter Jovian orbit. ...
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Hughes signs official ICO launch deal
ICO GLOBAL Communications, an affiliate company of Inmarsat, has officially signed a $925 million contract with Hughes Space Communications International to supply and manage launch services for 12 ICO satellites to provide worldwide, hand-held telephone, mobile-communications services. Hughes is ICO's first strategic partner and owns a $94 million investment share. ...
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Alpha Space Station faces a new crisis
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA IS TO REJECT Russian proposals to include the Mir 1 space station as part of the Alpha International Space Station programme (Flight International, 6-12 December). The US space agency confirms that Russia has made the proposal, but says: "We do not want ...
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China's EPKM is a riddle
THE SUCCESSFUL launch of the Asiasat 2 communications satellite aboard a Chinese Long March 2E booster from Xichang on 28 November included the "maiden flight" of the first nationally built EPKM perigee kick motor, says China. The motor, used to raise the satellite's low-Earth orbit to geostationary-transfer orbit, ...
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SOHO launched on Sun-watch mission
THE EUROPEAN Space Agency's 1,850kg Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), built by Matra Marconi Space, was launched successfully on 2 December by a Lockheed Martin Atlas 2AS booster from Cape Canaveral, Florida. From its vantage point in solar orbit 1.5 million kilometres from the Earth, called the Lagrangian Point, where the ...
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Norwegian satellite
Norway's Telenor satellite Services has awarded a contract to Hughes Space and Communications to supply an HS-376 high-power spin-stabilised satellite, called the Thor 2A, to be launched on a McDonnell Douglas Delta 2 in 1997, to provide 15-Ku band services to Scandinavia. Telenor's first Thor satellite was another HS-376 purchased ...
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NASA concerned over Russia's commitment to Alpha station
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA IS BECOMING concerned about Russia's attempts to save money by prolonging the life of its Mir 1 space station to enable it to be incorporated into the initial configuration of the Alpha International Space Station. Statements proposing the plan were first made by ...