All Space news – Page 224
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Latest Galileo failure threatens the Cassini
Tim Furniss/WASHINGTON DC A FAULTY TAPE recorder aboard NASA's $1.4 billion Galileo spacecraft could prevent much of its data and images being returned from the planet Jupiter this December, after its protracted six-year journey across the solar system. Should it prove impossible to correct the ...
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Egypt selects Matra Marconi
MATRA MARCONI Space has been awarded a $158 million contract to build and launch Egypt's Nilesat direct-broadcast television satellite. The deal was clinched despite competition from Aerospatiale and Lockheed Martin. The contract with Egyptian Radio and Television Union provides for the supply of a telecommunications satellite in orbit, ...
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Europeans resolve space-station row
Julian Moxon/TOULOUSE AFTER SIX YEARS of wrangling, the 14 members of the European Space Agency (ESA) have finally agreed on their financial contribution to the US/Russian-led Alpha international space station. An ESA ministerial meeting at Toulouse on 18-20 October hammered out a substantial compromise, which overcame ...
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Up Tempo
Space Systems Loral's Tempo 1 communications satellite, not the Astra 1F spacecraft, will make the first commercial launch of a Russian Proton booster from Baikonur in June 1996. The Proton, marketed by International Launch Services, has five bookings for satellites launches into geostationary orbit, (Flight International, 27 September-3 October). ...
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Ashes to ashes
The US Celestis organisation in Houston, which, in 1985, offered a service to place cremated human remains into space aboard the former Space Services Conestoga booster, has now approached Orbital Sciences with a view to use the Pegasus and Taurus boosters to provide a similar commercial service, starting in 1996. ...
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Jovian hurdles
The Galileo's six-year voyage to Jupiter is nearly over, but it still has hurdles to overcome. Tim Furniss/London NASA's $1.4 BILLION Galileo interplanetary spacecraft ploughed through the most intense dust storm ever measured as it homed in on the planet Jupiter, aiming for a ...
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Lockheed Martin and AT&T enter high-power satellite market
Tim Furniss/LONDON LOCKHEED MARTIN and AT&T have joined Space Systems/Loral and Hughes in the bid to capture a newly emerging geostationary-orbit (GEO) satellite-communications market. The companies have filed applications to the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch and operate high-power, Ka-band satellite systems offering a ...
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Russian link with Australia studied
A RUSSIAN SPACE delegation, led by officials from the Russian Space Agency and Khrunichev, is to visit Australia in November to discuss joint space ventures, including a joint commercial project to launch Cosmos boosters from the Woomera rocket range, delivering small satellites to low-Earth orbit. Also being discussed ...
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Second Shuttle Mir mission scheduled
NASA PLANS TO LAUNCH THE Space Shuttle Atlantis/STS74 on 1 November for the second Shuttle-Mir Mission (SMM). The six-day mission to dock with the Russian Mir 1 space station, seen here from the Atlantis during the SMM 1 mission on 29 June, will include the debut of a docking module ...
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At the crossroads
The future direction of the European Space Agency will be decided later this month. Tim Furniss/LONDON THE SUBJECT DOMINATING THE European Space Agency's (ESA) Council of Ministers meeting in Toulouse, France, on 18-20 October will be the international space station, code-named Alpha - the first internationally ...
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Space Station funding passes major milestone
Tim Furniss/LONDON THE US HOUSE of Representatives, has cleared a hard fought Bill, authorising NASA to spend $13.1 billion on the international space station over the next seven years, during which time, construction of the base is scheduled to be completed. The unprecedented financial forward ...
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Identified flying object
THIS IS ONE FLYING SAUCER which can be identified. It is the Wake Shield free-flying spacecraft seen after deployment during the Space Shuttle Endeavour/STS69 mission in September. Control problems and overheating reduced the craft's production of ultra-thin semiconductor films in the pure vacuum created in the wake of the Shuttle's ...
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The four contenders
I-CO I-CO Global Communication's system will cost about $2.6 billion for both the space and ground network, and it is expected to begin service in 1999/2000. It will use ten operational satellites, weighing 1,925kg, with 6.3kW power, in 10,400km circular orbits in two planes, providing about 160 beams ...
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Satellite wars
Establishing mobile telephone networks via satellite is proving fiercely competitive. Tim Furniss/LONDON THE INCREASINGLY competitive market of worldwide, anywhere-to-anywhere, mobile telephone systems is expected to have generated revenues of $26 billion by 2005, and have over 33 million subscribers by 2012. It is, however, a market likely ...
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NASA starts on New Millennium project
Tim Furniss/LONDON NASA PLANS TO launch three interplanetary space missions before 2000, as part of a $100 million-a-year New Millennium space-technology validation effort. The first to be launched in 1998, will be built by Spectrum Astro at a cost of about $30 million. It is ...
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Satellite launcher directory
Compiled by Tim Furniss/LONDON The futures of several launchers could be decided over the next 12 months THE NEXT YEAR will be critical for the future of several launch vehicles. Europe's Ariane 5 is due to have its maiden flight in 1996. Commercial operations by Arianespace, are scheduled ...
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ILS plans Proton threat to Ariane 5
Tim Furniss/LONDON US/RUSSIAN SATELLITE-launcher company International Launch Services (ILS) is planning to introduce a Proton M model in 1997, capable of carrying two Hughes HS-601-class satellites into geostationary orbit (GEO). The launcher will compete head-on with Arianespace's Ariane 5. ILS, which markets the US Atlas ...
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Russia seizes Rimsat satellites
RUSSIA'S Informcosmos organisation has taken back control of two orbiting communications satellites which US operator Rimsat claims to have "fully paid for". The satellites operate in geostationary orbit for Southeast Asian customers. Informcosmos, which Rimsat believes is working with the support of the Russian Space Agency and ...
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Atmospheric instrument
NASA has selected an atmospheric science instrument, called the pressure modulator infra red radiometer, to be flown aboard the Mars Surveyor orbiter in 1998. Source: Flight International
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Successful docking starts second Euromir mission
Tim Furniss/LONDON The Soyuz TM22 spacecraft docked with the Russian Mir 1 space station on 5 September, two days after launch from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. TM22's research engineer is the European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Reiter, who is scheduled to make a 135-day space ...